Courting Disaster
by pekeleke
Summary: For once in his life Harry Potter has a plan. A carefully plotted plan to help him conquer the heart of an extremely reluctant Severus Snape, only... conquering a suspicious ex-spy isn't for the fainthearted and soon Harry finds himself -quite literally- courting disaster.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: **Courting Disaster.**

**Rating** : M

**Author**: pekeleke

**Word** **Count**:1558.

**Warnings**: None.

**Disclaimer**: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.

_**Summary: **_For once in his life Harry Potter has a plan. A carefully plotted plan to help him conquer the heart of an extremely reluctant Severus Snape, only... conquering a suspicious ex-spy isn't for the fainthearted and soon Harry finds himself -quite literally- courting disaster.

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_**A/N: **_This is will be a multi-chaptered fic. It is at the moment a WIP and I want to dedicate it to Delia Cerrano, who is the kind of wonderful reader and reviewer who never tires of reading -sometimes even more than once- the shenanigans of my particular version of the boys.

I don't know how many times she has expressed a desire to read a story featuring the gradual dismantling of Severus' defenses through romantic courtship, so... I thought I should indulge her for once and attempt to finally write this dynamic for her. Here is my take on this particular trope then, Delia. I do hope you enjoy it as much as I relished the challenge of coming up with this story-line for you. :D

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_**Courting Disaster.**_

The pub is crowded. Noisy. Perfect...  
Despite his disappointing looks Severus Snape has no trouble snaring a sexual conquest whenever he's in the mood and tonight, of all nights, he is definitely in the mood.

He is feeling each and everyone of the 45 miserable years that he is celebrating tonight. Seating in splendid solitude in the darkest corner of the most infamous gay bar that Knocturn Alley has to offer with nothing more substantial for company than another shot of the cheap Firewhisky they sell here he feels exactly like the giant failure that he is. 45 years of age and he is still alone. Still a nobody. Still a forgotten, forgettable pariah.

"Happy birthday... bah!" He mumbles for the hundredth time under his breath as he contemplates the wisdom of ordering one last shot before abandoning his comfortably dark corner in pursuit of the company that lured him here in the first place. He's certainly drunk enough to have sent his usual reticence packing and the place has been filling steadily with a veritable throng of young fellows on the lookout for a bit of harmless fun. His window of opportunity has finally opened and he'll be damned before he allows himself to waste the rest of his evening on the maudlin contemplation of how much his life actually sucks.

Abandoning his table with a resolute air, he strolls regally across the crowded room, totally unaware of the fact that the oscillating light coming off the dance floor flits across his features with every step he takes, bathing his entire face alternatively in pale light and thick dark shadows that unveil the vision of a face that is both unashamedly harsh and starkly unlovely.

He understands that he can't be considered attractive under any circumstances, but there are certain types of men who, with a few pints in their belly, never fail to feel brave enough to approach him. These are men who consider themselves bold enough to attempt trying to tame the wild danger that he exudes like a dark aura and Severus sometimes wonders why he usually attracts that particular type of drunk, but has never found the right kind of logic to explain away the extremely bizarre fact.

"Stupid Gryffindor wannabes and disenchanted Hufflepuffs the lot of them, most probably. And dimwitted to boot if they really imagine that I could ever be 'tamed' by a half-drunk dunderhead." He mumbles under his breath, smiling encouragingly at a wide-eyed would-be-partner while his wavering mind remembers the explanation that some long-forgotten conquest whispered once against his neck in the back room of this very establishment.

_'Whatever brings them to me is their own business, isn't it? I have no need to feel guilty for using their own gullibility for my benefit...' _He decides in the next second, directing a scorching look towards the wide-eyed stranger and feeling his entire chest warm with relieved satisfaction when the man takes the first couple of stumbling steps in his direction. _'Well... that was unusually fast. I should be out of this hell-hole in the next fifteen minutes, then.'_

"Happy birthday, professor." Someone grabs him from behind in the next second, literally breathing those three words against the back of his shoulder and Severus would have had to be a lot drunker than he is to be unaware of the identity of his unwelcome assailant.

"Potter... Get your damned hands off me. You are scaring away properly good company."

Potter laughs. The sound is soft and breathy, falling against the very tips of his long hair in a series of small puffs that feel somehow more intimate than the touch of the determined hands that are still holding his robe-covered forearms.  
"The guy in the soft, gray shirt? He is not even good-looking, Severus!"

That dismissive little comment rattles him enough to push the Gryffindor as far away from him as he can manage. He turns around sharply, frowning so ferociously at the heroic Savior Of The Wizarding World that he hears a frightened gasp or two coming from the dancers that surround them.  
"I'm not good-looking, either, and that doesn't make me any less horny than you, Potter. It doesn't mean that I should head back home and embrace a life of god-damned celibacy while the rest of you, paragons of beauty, get on with the business of satisfying your urges. I don't have to be attractive to have mind-blowing sex and neither does he."

He turns around blindly, thoroughly disgusted now with himself for bothering to even address Potter's thoughtless little comment, and is about to take an absolutely infuriated step away when the best Seeker in England grabs him by the wrist, pinning him to the spot against his will.  
"I'm sorry. That was... vile jealousy speaking. I've been seating at the bar for a while now, trying to come up with a good enough excuse to walk up to your table and I think I panicked when I saw you suddenly stroll away from it."

Severus can't make any sense of that rather strange apology, but his mind is pleasantly fuzzy and he isn't worried enough to force himself to analyze the obscure inner workings of Potter's crazy mind.  
"You, the fearless Savior himself, _panicked_. Right." He agrees with that odd statement halfheartedly in the hope that humoring the brat will allow him get rid of the Gryffindor all the faster. His wide-eyed stranger has halted his approach altogether, likely intimidated by the fact that Severus seems to have caught the attention of the damned Boy-Who-Lived and he knows that it's imperative that he sets himself free from Potter's unwelcome presence in the next couple of seconds if he is to have any chance at all of bagging that particular bed-partner. "It was great talking to you, Potter, but I'm awfully busy right now. So, if you'll excuse me, I'll..."

Potter's bright emerald eyes flash with puzzling anguish. His head swivels clearly to their left, checking out the now completely still figure of the stranger who is still standing in watchful immobility at the very edge of the dance floor and a small, bitter sort of snarl explodes from his suddenly livid lips.  
"I bet the bloke can't believe his damned good luck..."

Severus frowns, suddenly uneasy by the inexplicable ferociousness that has appeared in that usually friendly visage.  
"Excuse me?"

Potter grabs him by the wrist in a rather frantic motion. He looks intense and determined, driven by some sort of angry urgency that Severus' alcohol-blunted senses find impossible to interpret.  
"Listen to me... I... I'll give you mind-blowing sex, if that's what you truly want, Severus. You don't have to settle for a stranger tonight, of all nights. You can have somebody who knows you. Someone who has been inside your head and 'seen' you, really seen you. You can have someone who _wants_ to be with you. Someone who will whisper your given name as orgasm crashes over him. Someone who knows that today is your birthday and that you are lonely. So lonely, Severus... You can have a man who is willing to hold you tonight until you fall asleep in his arms. A man who is willing to gift you the beautiful illusion of... love."

Severus gapes. His mind reels, unable to comprehend this utterly bizarre turn of events. His dark eyes rake over Potter and his pale cheekbones flush with the uncomfortable awareness that he finds the man attractive. Potter is centerfold material, after all. Has been so quite a few times in recent years, in fact. Ever since he became the most successful seeker to ever play in the United Kingdom he's been considered something of a sex-god. He's left behind his heroic past to become an incredibly successful sportsman in his own right. He is a talented flyer. A committed team-member. An incredibly appealing young man who's fit, friendly and usually discriminating when it comes to choosing a bed partner.

For many years now Potter has been the embodiment of every gay wizard's dream catch. Of every homosexual's mother dream son-in-law. He is every sleazy pub-crawler's fantasy bed-partner come to life and Severus knows in his heart of hearts that the brat shouldn't be here. He doesn't belong in places like this. He doesn't frequent them or even enjoys them, as far as anyone can tell. So... what in the bloody hell is Harry Potter doing here of all places? Why is he making this kind of... incredible... offer today, of all days, to a man like himself?

"I don't think I'm drunk enough to cope with hearing you offer me sex quite this out of the blue, Potter. I'm deeply honored by your unexpected proposition, but..."

A bold and cheeky grin blooms across the ex-Gryffindor's lips. He looks breathtakingly gorgeous. All enthusiasm and dimples and a genuine, honest-to-goodness smile. He takes a single step closer, raising up on his tiptoes to whisper softly against Severus' reddening ear:  
"Don't turn me down just yet, please. If you need another Firewhiskey to forget your precious inhibitions then I'm willing to offer as many toasts in honor of your birthday as it takes to make you start seeing double. Take a chance on me, Severus. You know that I'll never, ever, hurt you. Don't you? You've got nothing to lose..."

**TBC...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Courting Disaster. Ch 2.**

Harry Potter is leaning with apparent casualness against the left post at the foot of his richly carved four-posted bed, looking down towards his mattress with shadowed green eyes. Despite his deceptively relaxed and laid-back posture, his heart is pounding a mile a minute. His throat feels dry and is painfully constricted even though his slightly kiss-swollen lips can't seem to stop smiling at the vision before him: a sight that fills his entire being with the kind of wild exhilaration that he's been waiting a veritable eternity to have a chance to enjoy.

Severus Snape is tangled in his bed sheets in all his relaxed, long-limbed glory. Beautiful dark hair covers that beloved and stern profile, shielding it from Harry's thoughtful scrutiny for the time being. A slender and mostly hairless chest, shifts in the rhythmic pattern of ebb and flow that is so characteristic of deep sleep, gracing Harry's usually empty bed with it's pale, breathtaking beauty.

Severus' body is a rather startling mix of wiry strength and old scars that Harry can't bear to look away from. A number of small, purpling marks are beginning to bloom across that heartbreakingly marred neck and all along the prominent line of the Slytherin's collarbones and shoulders. There is something thoroughly satisfying in the knowledge that those tiny, lip-shaped hickeys are the work of his own lips, of his own unbridled passion for this impossibly difficult creature, and the idea that he has finally found a way to plant himself firmly in Severus Snape's life makes him smile toothily, giving him such a ridiculously huge sense of accomplishment that his chest expands with unchecked joy.

Harry is aware of the fact that his tactics so far haven't been fair to the Slytherin. He realizes that he timed his... offensive... perfectly. Striking at a moment when he'd known that Severus was bound to feel particularly vulnerable, willing to set aside his usual wary reserve in order to enjoy a single night of... comforting illusion. But he also knows this man's heart like the back of his own hand. He understands both Severus' deepest fears and the reasons behind all that unapproachable formality that he uses like a repelling shield. Harry has seen with his own eyes the nature of the hopes that used to fill that narrow and courageous chest, and has been mourning this wounded creature's long-abandoned dreams for a very long time now.

Love... Severus craves the emotion like the Dark Lord craved more power. Yet he doesn't believe in his own ability to inspire it any longer. He doesn't actively seek it and is closed-off in every sense of the word to the very possibility of encountering it at this point in his life.

It had taken Harry years to realize both the true nature of his own sexuality and the identity of the man who could complete him. He'd searched for his prince charming among skin-deep beauty, finding only warty toads hiding under the bright shimmer of devoted, breathless caring. He'd never settled for any of the bright-eyed, young hunks who chased after him in the hopes of becoming _'__The One and Only_ _love'_ of The-Boy-Who-Lived. He'd never wanted submissive devotion, or brainless idolatry. He wanted substance, loyalty, integrity. He wanted genuine affection. He wanted beauty beyond his wildest dreams...

His coming out had been difficult at first, only becoming plain and simply exhausting by the time someone had decided to use his unfortunate fame for the benefit of the Wizarding Homosexual Movement and turned him into the unwitting symbol of gay strength everywhere almost overnight.

Although homosexuality per-se wasn't particularly rejected in the wizarding world it was generally understood that a gay wizard was slightly... useless... to their society, since he would not be reproducing, thus failing in his unspoken duty to expand the already waning magical population.

Having Harry Potter, of all people, step right out of everyone's idea of the stereotypical heterosexual hero to announce that he was not only gay, but also unwilling to ever marry a woman just for the sake of propriety, had given an unprecedented weight to the idea that there was no truth whatsoever behind the supposed 'weakness' that afflicted the magic of openly practicing homosexuals.

Things had gotten out of hand from then on. There had been speeches and campaigning to be done. A lot of oohing and aahing had gone on when he'd yielded to Hermione's need to fight for the under-dog and decided to accept the unexpectedly heavy mantle of a magically strong gay icon. A number of unreasonable, archaic laws that still affected the rights of homosexual wizards, based on that very same assumption of magical fragility, had been overturned and modernized. Using both his image and reputation as an undeniable proof against their core assumptions.

He'd been too busy with life and work to pay too much attention to anything or anyone who wasn't included in his immediate circle of friends and professional acquaintances. It hadn't helped at all that Severus had refused to return to Hogwarts after his trial. He'd resigned from his position as the school's appointed Headmaster, shunned every offer he'd received to work for any of the Potions Laboratories that actively tried to head-hunt him and abandoned the United Kingdom altogether in order to... find peace.

It wasn't until Draco announced that he was marrying Ginny that Severus had returned, brought back home not by a sense of duty or the promise of the riches that he could still lay claim to, if he ever bothered to accept the position of Head of the Potions Research Department that St Mungo's was -literally- desperate to offer him. No. Severus Snape had returned home for Draco Malfoy and Draco Malfoy alone. Love for his precious godchild had brought the old spy back to England three years after the end of the war and it had been at that point that Harry had finally realized why he'd never found the man who could complete him among the thousands of idiots who'd been pursuing him so relentlessly since his coming out.

He'd never found the love of his life because the man had been out of his reach all along. His heart had always been yearning for that very same intensity that had once put his teenage self under the thrall of his mysterious Half-blood Prince. It had taken him one single look, one terribly awkward conversation, one ill-fated argument over some stupid topic that he can't even properly recall anymore to realize that he felt... alive... for the first time in years. That he felt... energized and dizzy with anticipation, breathless with the sort of physical awareness that was very clearly not being reciprocated in the slightest by the aloof creature who inspired it.

For a while he'd tried to forget the crazy notion that he might, just might, have developed a wild crush on his former potions professor. He'd returned to the dating game with a vengeance, attempting to find himself a more suitable frighteningly clever and dark-haired would-be-lover. But he'd failed to develop the deep attachment he craved. He'd failed to find a replacement for Severus and, as their mutual closeness with both Draco and Ginny respectively kept throwing them both into increasingly frequent contact year after year, that vague initial awareness of desire had shifted inexorably into a powerful passion.

Harry has known for a while that his affection towards Severus is unlimited. It is both unbridled and viscerally instinctive. It is the kind of emotion that could so very easily last throughout their lifetimes. The kind that tells him that he can't afford to let his dreams go without fighting for the chance to try making them real.

Severus is gay, too. That one piece of knowledge, discovered almost by accident less than a year ago, has turned Harry's entire world upside down. Gone is his grim determination to never reveal his own feelings to the man, to never make him feel uncomfortable in his presence, to respect the fact that there is nothing he could possibly offer him that might suit Severus' preferences. Now he knows what he'd never realized before: Severus could be his... They could be a couple. They could so very easily find a way to love one another with the kind of genuine intensity that they both crave, if only he manages to pull off his carefully devised plan.

Harry's heart is already engaged. It was hopelessly deposited at Severus' forbidding feet a long time ago. Now all he has to do is find a way to get past his beloved's extensive maze of self-protective barriers. He has to make the wary man 'see' him as a romantic partner. Has to burrow under Severus' skin and make him understand that all those dreams of home and hearth that he's given up for lost out of... hopelessness... could be well within his grasp, could become their very future. Their very own version of that peskily elusive happily-ever-after.

He has to find a way into his wary potioneer's heart. Has to earn a trust that has always been only skin-deep on Severus' part when it comes to him. He has to show his stubborn Slytherin that there is more to Harry Potter than a famous, but brainless, athlete. He has to charm a man who is going to distrust the very notion of being charmed because no one has ever bothered to take care of him in such a way before...

He has to attack Severus' self-protective cold formality with his own hopefully disarming warm devotion and hold on for dear life, no matter how hard or for how long Severus attempts to deny them the possibility of becoming finally closer...

Sex can lead to love. Harry has seen it happen plenty of times. A strictly sexual liaison could open the door to further intimacy between them. Sex is often the beginning of most modern-day romances, anyway... Harry knows that he has used Severus' fragility ruthlessly, but he hadn't had any other option. Taking advantage of a drunk man's desire to lose himself in the warm illusion of affection had ended up being the only door left for him to knock on, after every single casual invitation that he'd issued to his stubborn Prince in the last few months had been viciously rejected on principle...

"I know I should be ashamed of myself, Severus. I even know that you'll hate my guts for taking advantage of you, at least for a little while... But I can not -will not- let you go without fighting for you this once. I'm a warrior, you know? And so are you. We both deserve someone willing to fight for the right to be beside us. We deserve each other..." Harry's softly voiced explanation falls into the oppressive silence like a shaken little sigh. His lips lose the faint smile that has been gracing them as the first rays of the raising sun finally break through the flimsy barrier of his delicate curtains.

He realizes that Severus won't be able to sleep forever. Not with the kind of hangover that he's probably sporting. There are things he needs to do before his very own grumpy version of sleeping beauty finally wakes. He has a battleground to prepare. A necessary explanation to polish. A hangover potion to collect from the kitchen and a few key items of Severus' dark clothing to misplace...

It's time to retreat and plan his strategy while he still has the advantage of surprise in their upcoming skirmish. He is up against the very best example of Slytherin cunning and there's only one possible way to conquer this particularly slippery snake. He has to go for the heart. He has to do so directly. Bluntly. Without leaving room for misunderstandings or misinterpretations of any kind. He has to own up to his feelings and his plotting from the word go. He has to slice his own shields open and expose his terrifying vulnerability to the scrutiny of his beloved, because Severus Snape is a man who will never fall for pretty little lies. He won't fall for either half-truths or subtle mind games. Severus will only fall for honesty. He is an all-or-nothing sort of man and that means that only an all-or-nothing sort of love will tempt him into risking his fiercely guarded heart...

**TBC...**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 3.**_

Severus wakes to the unpleasant brightness of an obscene amount of sunlight and the disorienting sound of kitchen utensils clattering about. His eyes open to an unfamiliar bedroom while the tell-tale smell of mixed sweat and sex that is rising from the bed sheets tangled around his bare limbs surrounds him like a cloying shroud of regret.

His chest constricts with the sudden awareness that he has allowed himself to go through the horrible ordeal of letting some unknown man fuck him into the mattress beneath him and he finds the idea so distressing that his instinctive horror manages to mask the first signs of the terrible hangover that is now beginning to take over his frayed senses.

A powerful wave of nausea rises up the back of his throat in the next second and his dark eyes begin to water even as he flinches in pained reaction to the unbearably bright light. He groans out loud in misery before clamping his mouth tightly shut once again, attempting to ride out his instinctive need to throw up. His stomach roils wretchedly and his temples start pounding with such savagery that he raises trembling fingertips to massage them in circles, trying in vain to coax some of the pain away in order to bring himself to some sort of useful physical condition.

He needs to find the strength to get up from this bed. He needs to find first his wand and then his clothing. He needs to determine the identity of whoever was clanking dishes somewhere in the house a mere second ago and find the right frame of mind to sail through the unbearable 'morning after' awkwardness that awaits him. He also needs to try his best to bring back into focus his hazy recollections of last night and he needs to do all of that as soon as humanly possible in order to whisk himself back to safety before this damned hangover manages to kill him. He needs to return home, raid his bathroom cabinet for the one potion that can take away all traces of his current agony and attempt to forget that he's been so inexplicably stupid.

Gosh... he hates his blasted birthday with a passion bordering on fervor. He is painfully aware of the fact that he only ever indulges in this sort of self-destructive behavior whenever he allows his own disproportionate sense of self-pity to get the better of him. He can't believe that he is now forty-five years of age and still such a god-damned idiot. He has behaved even more recklessly than usual, from the look of things. Allowing himself to be whisked away to some stranger's house is plain and simply careless. He hasn't risked more than a bathroom-stall tryst or a hurried dark-alley encounter in years...

"Here. Take a dose of Hangover Potion before you even attempt drinking your coffee and you should be right as rain by the time you are done with your eggs, Severus."

The unexpected voice startles him right out of his gloomy thoughts and his closed eyes snap open in shocked sync with his utterly embarrassing squeak of disbelief. He has recognized the owner of that cheerful tone immediately and the dismay currently coursing through his every vein and muscle keeps him pinned to the mattress like a human-shaped lump.

"Po... Potter..." The name abandons his lips in a sort of dazed whisper. His voice sounds too hoarse for his liking and his mouth feels foul with the unmistakable aftertaste of undiluted alcohol.

Potter smiles at him calmly before placing the tray he's carrying on the nightstand and taking a seat on the edge of the rumpled bed, coming uncomfortably close to his rigid body. Sudden awareness of his own state of undress hits Severus like a punch to the stomach and he cringes visibly where he lays, bringing Potter's forward motion to an abrupt and jarring halt. Vibrant emerald eyes settle over him then, studying his pale face thoughtfully in the uncomfortably growing silence.

"I'm aware that you are probably feeling deeply embarrassed right now, Severus. But there's no reason for you to be self-conscious. Let's deal with your hangover first and then we can talk about this more calmly. Take the potion, please. I swear that it won't harm you. It's actually one of your own, you know? Draco tells me that the small shield on the right side of the bottle is meant to inform the costumer of the brewer's identity. You chose the old Prince emblem as your potioneer's signature, didn't you? Nowadays I never buy anything in the apothecary unless it has your silver shield..."

Severus grabs the potion warily, studying the bottle as carefully as his pounding head allows him. He doesn't even bother trying to hide the paranoid suspicion that fuels his actions when he uncorks the vial, turning it this side and that in the bright sunlight before reluctantly bringing it up to his prodigiously long nose and sniffing its contents without apology, only deciding to gulp it down after his thorough check is finally complete. There are a number of ways of tampering with sealed potions and he is unfortunately familiar with each and every single one of them. He has tainted plenty of bottles himself along the years, most of them on the Dark Lord's direct orders...

The brat smiles at him encouragingly, apparently unfazed by his obvious lack of trust and Severus blinks at him in utter confusion. Hazy memories of last night are becoming increasingly clear and, although he can now recall having been approached by the Gryffindor at one point in the evening, he can scarcely believe that he managed to bag himself a man like Harry Bloody Potter, of all people.

"Tell me that we didn't..." He falters, cringing visibly at the unwelcome realization that he can't even bring himself to finish that thoroughly embarrassing sentence. He feels awkward beyond words, sitting on the blasted Savior's bed without a single stitch on while the athletic seeker gazes thoughtfully at him, safely shielded from the bitter shame of physical exposure by a faded pair of perfectly fitting muggle jeans and a simple white t-shirt that frames his toned body to maddening perfection.

As if reading his mind, Potter's hand lowers carefully towards the bed sheets, silently collecting huge fistfuls of the rumpled cloth before gathering it around the bare skin of his jutting hips with utter gentleness. The soft cotton yields to the Gryffindor's manipulation, covering Severus' legs and lower abdomen demurely and causing a lump the size of Hogwarts to settle smack bang in the middle of his dangerously constricted windpipe. His dark head lowers in utter shame, unfocused gaze settling with sightless awkwardness on the bony ridge that marks the spot where his own flimsily covered knees rest under the linen while he attempts to come to terms with the puzzling fact that Potter's shocking gentleness is making him feel threatened.

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to fall into bed with you, Potter. There must be something I'm missing... do you have a room-mate? A visitor from abroad? A colleague who uses this place to keep his little sexual escapades secret from either friends or family?" He forces himself to ask those questions, grimly determined to find out the real identity of the man to whom he'd so thoughtlessly granted free reign of his scrawny body while under the influence of what must had been a single shot short of alcohol poisoning.

Callused fingertips become bold enough to brush a wayward lock of his long hair away from his pale temple, looping it with truly breathtaking tenderness behind his reddening ear. Then that disarmingly gentle hand traces a delicate path down the sharp lines of his painfully narrow jaw, burning a trail of sheer fire along his embarrassingly flushed face until it settles: quietly, but as firm as the metal gauntlet of an ancient suit of armor, just under the very tip of his lowered chin, forcing his face inexorably upwards in the next second. Until there's nothing else for him to do but look directly into the strangely intense expression that has appeared on the face of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Earnest green eyes clash with his own widened stare and Severus feels as if he is drowning in a veritable sea of unfamiliar and tempestuous waters. The voice that he has always considered way too friendly and easy going to be taken seriously turns grave with solemnity for the first time in his memory as it informs him quite firmly:  
"There is no one else here but us. We made love last night, Severus, and it was the most beautiful experience of my life."

For a blissfully short second he simply stares into Potter's eyes without registering the meaning of his words. When they finally sink into his disconcerted mind he finds himself genuinely unable to understand what could have possibly driven him to actually open his legs for the man's entertainment, even if he'd somehow managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of snaring the Savior's attention in the first place...

Then a single, dazzling memory slams into him like a cursed sledgehammer and he can literally feel the ghostly weight of arms -Potter's arms- surrounding him. The Gryffindor spent all night long embracing him with the kind of loving warmth that no other person has ever bothered to give him before. He remembers falling into exhausted sleep while being cradled like a priceless treasure against the heart of a man who is his moral and social better in every single way there is. He's been spooned, soothed and protected throughout the endless dark hours of what is possibly the loneliest and most heartbreaking night that he's forced to endure on a yearly basis. He's been gifted unlimited gentleness. Has been offered disarmingly tender... care.

Outright distress turns his already rigid frame to stone. His eyes widen even further and his already flushed face turns literally ablaze with bone-deep embarrassment. He jerks backwards instinctively, pulling his chin as far away from Potter's unbearably delicate touch as he can possibly manage. His dismayed dark eyes close as he attempts to ride out the sickening roller-coaster of emotions that these thoroughly unwelcome news have just created within him.

He feels breathless with sheer shock. He is ashamed beyond endurance and mortified to the point of actual trembling. He feels horrified and wounded. Utterly lost. Absolutely humiliated by the knowledge that he chose Potter's offer of... comfort... over the safety of his usual dark-alley nameless hook up. He can hardly believe that he's been deluded enough -pitiful enough- to put himself in the position of having to endure the callous dismissal that he knows will come his way as soon as his host opens his mouth.

"There's no need for all this self-flagellation, Severus. We are both adults. Both unattached. We didn't harm anyone by spending the night together. I can't understand why you are taking this so badly..."

Hysterical laughter bubbles up the back of Severus' drying throat. His eyes open once again to glare with unmistakable scorn at the little nitwit sitting so calmly beside him.  
"I used to be your damned teacher, Potter. I happen to know you. Personally know you... I won't be able to escape this particular mistake. Not even after I leave this bedroom behind. You are one of Ginevra's best friends, for Merlin's sake! We'll be forced to interact with one another on occasion while trapped together in Draco's home and I'll always be aware of the fact that you've seen me like this. You've been inside of me. You know exactly how I look beneath my clothes. You know what my voice sounds like when I'm on the verge of orgasm. You know precisely how my face crumbles into slackened unloveliness as soon as I let myself go... "

"Severus..."

"You are going to go clubbing one of these days and tell all your friends the amusing story of how you fucked the awful Severus Snape into your mattress. You will laugh yourself hoarse while making depressingly clear descriptions of my many shortcomings and each and every single one of the people laughing with you will be someone I taught potions to. Someone who despises me. Someone who will relish the chance of seeing me humiliated..."

Potter's skin acquires a sick-looking pallor. He looks shattered with the kind of bone-deep sorrow that's impossible to fake.  
"I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. One day I'll share my memory of this morning with you, Severus. I'm going to let you see exactly how I felt when I woke up next to you for the first time in my life and realized that last night hadn't been just another pretty dream of mine. I didn't bed you to humiliate you or to have some sort of ludicrous revenge against you. I came to terms with your role in the war a long time ago, professor, just like all my friends did. I've moved on from all that darkness and now the only thing I want to do is live my life in peace."

"I don't believe a word you are saying."

To his credit the ex-Gryffindor doesn't even flinch. He studies Severus levelly with those earnest emerald eyes while the wobbly smile that curves his slightly chapped lips adds a shimmer of fragile sincerity to the words that he finally whispers in soft-toned reply:  
"I know that you don't, Severus, but that doesn't make what I'm telling you any less truthful. I bedded you because I think you are beautiful. I like the man I see when you let down your masks and allow yourself the freedom to be... _you_. I love seeing you laugh whenever you think you are alone with Draco. I never tire of watching the passionate light that brings warmth to your eyes every single time the two of you argue about potions. I like the man that you try so hard to hide. The one who needed to feel loved last night because it was his 45th birthday and he didn't want to be alone. The one who clung to me through a wild orgasm and thanked me for the kiss I placed carefully on his temple just before he fell asleep. I've liked that man for a very long time now. I'm in love him, Severus. I'm in love with _you_. That's the plain and simple truth."

Severus recoils, as if that simple declaration of affection has managed to strike him across the cheek, delivering all the stinging shock of a sudden and brutal slap to his paling face.  
"Don't you laugh at me, Potter. Don't you dare to laugh at me!" He growls fiercely, maddened beyond reason by the unnecessary cruelty of the brat's bare-faced lies.

"I'm not laughing at you. I'm not trying to trick you, either. I swear to you that I mean every single word I'm saying. I want you to trust me, Severus. I need you to trust me. I'll prove it to you in any way you want. Just tell me how I can do that and I promise..."

"Give me my wand back, Potter." He whispers that one request into the discordant buzz of the brat's frantic babble, having already decided that the Gryffindor won't met his demand without forcing him to go through some sort of exhausting and possibly humiliating haggling first. He ends up nursing a truly uncomfortable case of guilty conscience when Potter simply stops talking and looks right into his eyes with the most disarming expression of heartbroken disappointment that Severus has ever seen displayed on his attractive young features:

"Your wand is under your pillow, my love. I know you well enough to realize that you'd feel... bereft... without it. I'd have never taken your wand away from you, Severus. You are not a prisoner here. You accepted my invitation to spend the night with me because you wanted to feel..."

"Don't say it, please... This situation is embarrassing enough without having to hear you enumerate all the ways in which I'm pitiful."

"You are not pitiful at all. You. Are. Beautiful, Severus. Feeling the need to be loved is not something you should be ashamed of. That's actually the most precious of human emotions and I..."

"I'm done listening to this drivel." He interrupts the seeker hastily, holding his wand aloft and casting a sharp-toned Accio that brings his clothes to him in the blink of an eye. He gathers the heavy dark garments tightly with his trembling left hand, pressing them against the bare skin of his scarred chest like a shield against danger.

"You are leaving, then." Potter says in a small whisper. Those huge eyes are brimming with terrible hurt and disappointment behind the brat's trendy lenses and the inexplicably wounded expression that is flashing so clearly across their emerald depths manages to make Severus' gut twist uncomfortably with guilt when the brat continues to babble nervously: "You didn't even drink your coffee and your eggs... I can't believe you'll leave your eggs untouched. I can go back to the kitchen and scramble a few more, if you don't want to have them fried. I can..."

"I'll have breakfast at home. I've got no reason to stay here, Potter. I'm not... I can't... I just... Goodbye."

Years of Disapparating back to safety while badly injured or even partially restrained have taught him how to accomplish the feat without actually leaving the bed. He half turns where he sits and whisks himself away from Potter's orbit, apparating out of the man's bedroom before the seeker's next blink.

His choice is made just like that and he can't help but feel the smallest bit uneasy about his actions as he tries to come to terms with the fact that he has chosen to remove himself completely from the only place -beside his own house and Draco's- where he has managed to sleep without feeling threatened for the first time in more years than he cares to count. He has consciously decided to walk away from the terrifying notion that there might be one last man still left on this Earth who seems willing to love him romantically. He refuses to even entertain the idea of what his future might have looked like if only this was true. If only he had enough courage to trust a Gryffindor so blindly. If only he didn't look as ugly as he does or wasn't as foul tempered. If only he could be literally anyone besides... himself.

There is no point in thinking about such things any longer, though. Potter will move on and so will he, he tells himself firmly as his feet land in the soothing familiarity of his own shadowy bedroom and, by the time he has spelled away the smattering of purpling hickeys that the man left in his neck, has dressed himself in a clean set of robes and is climbing down the stairs in search of a much needed cup of fortifying tea he has actually managed to convince himself that he is right about the wisdom of renouncing the temptation to let himself slip into fool-mode one last time.

He can't afford to surrender to his illogical desire to stop doubting the sincerity of Potter's sweet avowals of love. He won't allow himself the idiocy of daring to actually believe that a hunk like Harry Potter could ever want to be his. Why should a man who can literally have anyone he wants willingly pick someone like him, anyway? It makes no sense whatsoever. And if there is something that his miserable life has taught him in painfully explicit detail is that things that make no sense are almost always too good to be true...

**TBC...  
**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Courting Disaster. Ch4.**_

Harry fidgets in the richly upholstered chair and sighs explosively, feeling more than a little frustrated with his inability to sway Draco away from his adamant refusal to confide the exact location of Severus' home to him. They have been locked in the blond's office for the best part of an hour, arguing back and forth without ever reaching any sort of mutually satisfactory agreement.

His tea went cold a long time ago and he's ravenously hungry, but he's also churlishly refusing to touch the mouthwatering array of small sandwiches that one of the house-elves placed on a small serving table before leaving them alone. Despite his current level of resentment Harry had always assumed that his former schoolyard-rival was going to react exactly like this. He'd have done the same thing if he'd been in the other man's shoes, after all.

He had actually anticipated Severus' frosty displeasure. He'd even predicted with frightening accuracy how completely the man would shun him in an effort to give himself enough time to retreat right back inside his tattered armor. He'd been expecting Severus' refusal to remain in his flat and talk things out like any other -less haunted- man might have done and he had even gone as far as planning exactly how to deal with that situation, only...

His painstakingly devised plan has been a failure. He miscalculated the strength of Severus' attachment to his carefully selected second lure and he just can't reconcile himself to the knowledge of how wrong he's been about this, of how woefully inaccurate his knowledge of Severus' personality has proven itself to be. He can't believe how horribly mistaken he's been about the one assumption that he'd considered to have been pretty much carved in stone. He'd expected Severus to descend knocking on his door within hours of abandoning his bedroom and now here he is an entire week later, still waiting for a visit that the man is very clearly never going to make.

The abject failure of his perfectly devised plot has forced him at long last to gather his shredded dignity about himself like a ratty cloak and come here in search of the kind of help he knows he'll never receive willingly. Not from this source at least. Not if he fails to convince this life-hardened version of the wimpy child he used to hate of the fact that his intentions towards Severus are nothing sort of... pristine.

He is desperate by now and he knows it very well. He also has the uncomfortable suspicion that his host can sense the weakness of his position from a mile away. He needs help and there is no one else on earth who can possibly grant it to him when it comes to Severus Snape, so he swallows down a scream of sheer frustration and remains stiffly seated in his outrageously ornate chair, manfully enduring the challenge in Malfoy's flinty gaze as best as he can while attempting to ignore the thought that everything would be a hell of a lot easier if only Draco's loyalty to his godfather was a tiny bit weaker. If it wasn't going to end up forcing him to hunt Severus down in a far more public setting...

"I swear to you that I'm not going to harm him, Malfoy. He left some stuff behind in my apartment and I want to return his things. That isn't so bloody threatening, is it?"

"I can return them for you. Or you could owl them to him. Severus is a very private man who dislikes personal visits. I see no reason for you to go all the way to his place in order to return these... misplaced... items yourself."

"I want to deliver them in person. I need to see him and make sure he's alright. I want to talk to him, for Godric's sake!" He explains one more time, praying to Merlin for the other man to relent enough to help him. He's desperately trying to avoid paying a visit to Severus' potions lab and ending up being forced to drag the man into the kind of public confrontation that he is so clearly shying away from.

Draco's pale lips compress into a thin line.  
"He doesn't want to talk to you, Potter. It's rather tactless of you to pursue him so insistently. Severus is ashamed of what happened between the two of you and is actively attempting to forget it. I realize that he will have to face you at some point in the future, but he doesn't want to do it right now and I'm not going to help you force him into doing it before he is ready."

"Are you even aware that I'm in love with him?"

Draco's harsh expression softens ever so slightly. His gray eyes fill with unbearable pity and his response is both quiet and excruciatingly gentle. Soft like a butterfly's wings. Wounding with its heartfelt sympathy:  
"He doesn't believe you."

Despite knowing that already, hearing the truth hurts Harry to the bone. He flinches visibly in his chair, shrinking against the richly upholstered backrest like a weak and frightened creature but his gaze remains steadily focused on his host's pale gray eyes thorough sheer determination to win the man's favor:  
"He told me as much the last time I saw him, Draco. But he is wrong about this. He's wrong about me and about what I want from him. He's so very wrong... I swear to you that I'm not going to hurt him. I could never, ever, hurt him."

"You've already hurt him, Harry. He was content enough with his life. Maybe he wasn't blissfully happy, but he was reasonably satisfied with his lot. He'd just started to put the horror of the war finally behind him when you decided to play Casanova and ended up messing him up again."

"I'm not playing with him, Malfoy. I'm not going to let the two of you push me into the role of a heartless Don Juan, just to soothe the guilty sting of Severus' conscience while he tries to cast me off. I'm in love with that stubborn idiot and I need you to help me get hold of him so that I can convince him of my..."

"This has brought it all back, Potter. All Severus can remember whenever he thinks about you now are the tricks that your awful father and his idiotic sidekicks used to play on him year after year while he was growing up. He's gone back to the memory of the decades he spent fulfilling the role of the most despised professor in the history of Hogwarts. He's gone back to remembering everyone's mocking descriptions of him as an undesirable traitor...

"My godfather is a cripplingly insecure man and you've just gone ahead and thrown him right back into the kind of dark memories that he's been trying so hard to forget. He is so ashamed of himself that right now he's convinced that you are trying to make him pay for his past actions. He is driving himself crazy waiting for the Prophet's article where you finally tell all about your awful night with a Death Eater."

"That's never going to happen. Never!"

Draco smiles at him briefly, but his gaze is as flinty as Harry has ever seen it and he's shaking his blond head from left to right with crystal-clear frustration.  
"Do you think I don't know that? I'd bet even Severus himself knows it, deep down. You've never been the kind of man who kisses and tells, Potter. You've never been the kind of man who fucks around, either. That's why he is so frightened right now. I think he suspects that you are telling him the truth. I believe he's realized it, but can't bring himself to accept it. He can't cope with the idea of allowing himself to fall for you and end up having to confront everyone's outraged reaction to the possibility of the two of you ever becoming a couple.

"He is a lot older than you are and rather unpopular. He's at best a forgettable recluse and at worst a social pariah, whereas you... you are the bloody Boy-Who-Lived, for Merlin's sake! The entire world is going to despise whoever you end up with and that hatred will be all the more vicious once the public finds out that the man of your choice is none other than Severus Snape: infamous professor, traitorous Death Eater spy and the acknowledged murderer of Albus Dumbledore himself."

"There is nothing I can do about any of that, Draco. Public opinion is a very fickle thing. They might hate him for a while, but it won't last. I realize that Severus would probably feel relieved if I turn out to be a vengeful scumbag instead of a genuine suitor, but... that's just not the case. I genuinely, honestly, love him. He doesn't have a single reason to be ashamed of what happened between us. I'm the one who took advantage of him. I knew that he was lonely and ready to settle for something that was never even going to come on the same orbit of the thing he wanted the most. I made him an offer that I knew full well he wasn't going to be able to refuse. Not on that particular night and definitely not while he was drunk. I even encouraged him to drink more, after his initial refusal to come home with me, knowing that the lower his defensive shields became, the more chances I had of having him eventually surrender to his own deepest desires."

"This is really none of my business, Potter..."

"No, it's not. But you are the only connection to him that I have right now and he trusts you. I trust you. You've got to listen to me, Malfoy. I used my knowledge of Severus' nature to lure him away from his first choice of companion and brought him home with me that night. It wasn't a mistake on my part and it wasn't a coincidence, either..."

"Potter, I honestly don't want to..."

Harry ignores the blond's discomfited protest and continues speaking adamantly, grimly determined to make his ex-rival understand precisely what he is feeling. What he has done. What he is so desperately attempting to achieve:  
"Listen to me, please... I attended an international Quidditch conference last year. I was reading the Prophet one morning when one of the french players spotted the picture of Severus that they published the day he won that potions award for his improvements to the formula of the Dreamless Sleep potion.

"The guy gaped at the photo and snatched the paper right out of my hand to read the article, then he asked me if the person in the picture was really the infamous Severus Snape. When I confirmed the information he started chuckling to himself and told me there and then how he had sex with Severus a few years earlier, after meeting him at The Unfettered Queer one night, back in the days when he'd been The Manchester Bullfrog's reserve beater. Best shag of his life, he called him, and I... I've never been more infuriated with someone in all my life. I've never been more grateful to someone I so deeply resented, either..."

"Stop that, Potter, for heaven's sake! I don't want to hear any of this and nothing you say now will sway me from my position on this matter, anyway."

"I was already desperately in love with Severus back then, but I thought he was straight, Malfoy. I spent years pining for a man I was convinced I could not have... Do you have any idea of how relieved I felt when I finally realized that Severus is like me? I'm not going to stop pursuing him until he gives me a proper chance to show him how truly wonderful our future could become, if only he dares to put a single shred of his faith in me. I'm not going to give up. I _can't!_ You've got to understand me, Draco, please... Turning my back on my feelings without even daring to put up the fight of my life just to earn my chance at being allowed to woo him properly will be the death of me."

"Then I wish you good luck. I genuinely do, Potter. And I'm more sorry than you shall ever know about having to tell you that I'm not going to help you. I wish I could, but I can't. I'm Severus' secret keeper because he trusts me with both his life and his safety and I'd cut off my own tongue and burn it with Fiendfyre before betraying that trust. Do you understand me? If you want my godfather's home address you'll have to get him to disclose it to you personally, because I most certainly won't do it. I'm sorry."

**TBC...**


	5. Chapter 5

**_Courting Disaster. Ch 5._**

Severus hears the doorbell ring frantically in the front room of his shop and frowns into his cauldron. Although his laboratory is located on the far corner of Diagon Alley it isn't an actual apothecary. He'd refused to tie himself to any given contract upon his return to the United Kingdom, rejecting every single offer of employment he'd received no matter how lucrative it might have appeared to be on the surface. He'd been tired of toiling for the benefit of others, exhausted of following orders and absolutely determined to avoid falling into the trap of complying with agendas that weren't his own and didn't particularly interest him, so he'd balked at the very idea of subjecting himself to any sort of subservience, no matter how indirect.

He'd opted for opening his own independent lab instead and now accepts to work for others on a freelance basis as long as the job requested intrigues him in some way. In addition to that he brews and sells his own brand of regular use and medicinal potions to a select number of high-end apothecaries and conducts all manner of research projects in his own terms. He often spends his days safely ensconced in his lab for hours on end without ever setting eyes on another person. All of his business dealings are carried out by owl and he has never so far had to deal with the distressing experience of trying to please actual customers, since he doesn't keep a stock of ready-to-buy potions in his shelves.

He sighs, rubbing his slightly pounding temples soothingly even as he casts the stasis spell that will keep his current experiment from being thoroughly ruined while he goes upstairs in search of the clueless tourist who must have mistakenly entered his establishment assuming it to be an actual apothecary. Spotting a casually attired man on the far corner of his front room Severus walks forwards briskly, beginning to speak out loud even as he focuses distractedly on the task of charming his hands free from any ingredient residue left over by his brewing, in preparation to making the cup of tea that he has now decided to fix for himself before returning to work.

"I'm sorry for your trouble, Sir, but I'm afraid that we don't carry ready-made potions in this particular establishment..."

"I know that, Severus."

His steps falter as that thoroughly unmistakable voice reaches his ears. His fingers curl instinctively around the comfortingly familiar handle of his wand and he feels as if his lungs have lost all air. His head shoots up, forcing his widened eyes into unwelcome collision with a determined-looking green glare and time itself appears to slow down before freezing. Keeping them both motionless and speechless in the growing silence.

"Potter... What are you doing here?"

The Gryffindor huffs impatiently, apparently deeply offended by what Severus himself thinks is a very reasonable question.  
"What else did you expect me to do? I wanted to see you, Severus. I've been trying to set up a more convenient time and place for us to talk, but you haven't bothered to answer a single one of the owls I've sent you."

"I'd have thought that my failure to do so would have conveyed my desire to be left alone clearly enough."

"No amount of hiding your head in the sand is going to take this away. We. Made. Love. There's no reason to be ashamed of it. I enjoyed myself immensely and so did you. It was one of the most glorious experiences of my life and I'll be damned before I let you treat it like some sort of ghastly little mistake. I've already told you that I have feelings for you. Feelings that I'd like to have the chance to explore further..."

"And I've already told you that I don't believe that ridiculous claim, Potter. Tell me what you really want from me in order to keep quiet and I might be inclined to negotiate some sort of mutually beneficial terms with you."

"I'm not going to sell you out, Severus! This is my private life too, you know? I realize that you aren't all that willing to trust me right now, but just think about it for a second, OK? There's no reason whatsoever for you to be behaving as if I'm the one who's out to get you when you are the one who has all the power in this relationship."

"We. Don't. Have. A. Relationship!" Severus spats those incensed five words in a clearly annoyed hiss and the ex-Gryffindor becomes instantly still, seeming to be reacting instinctively to his raising temper.

"Of course we do. No matter how much you try to deny it the truth is that I. Am. In. Love. With. You, so..."

"No. You are not. You can't be. You are only saying that because you..."

"Yes?"

"I don't know! It doesn't make a lick of sense to me... What the hell are you playing at, Potter? What do you want from me?"

"Everything. I want everything from you. I want you to give me a chance to court you. A real chance, Severus, not this painful self-protective brush off that you are so determined to deliver right now."

Severus' breath catches as that statement falls into the silence that surrounds them like the gauntlet of an ancient, reckless knight. His dark gaze widens to capacity and he stares with unblinking dismay straight into the determined emerald orbs that are looking right back at him with equal amounts of challenge and a fierce, crystal-clear longing.  
"I have nothing to give you. I have nothing left to give to anyone. I was stripped bare of anything of value that I might have had even the slightest chance of offering to another human being a long time ago, Potter."

That young face softens with unmistakable tenderness and the seeker's intense emerald eyes shimmer in the dimness of the room as they gaze upon him intently, pinning him to the spot with the force of the powerful emotion that has begun to swirl within their depths.  
"I've seen you with Draco. I've seen the way you handle both your potions and your books. I've seen the way you look at Hogwarts whenever you go back and how your trembling fingertips keep on tracing the carving of Dumbledore's coat of arms every time you visit his grave... You have always known love. You are capable of loving people, things, places and even memories with all of your heart, Severus. I've seen it with my own eyes. You are so full of things to give that I'm surprised you haven't lost your sanity yet. Keeping such emotional intensity locked in so tightly all the bloody time can't be good for anyone."

"Potter..."

"It's OK. I realize that I'm making you uncomfortable. I know you aren't precisely used to talking about emotions so openly and I'm perfectly willing to leave this conversation for another time, Severus. There's no need for you to panic right now. All I want to do is..."

"I couldn't possibly care any less about what you want. You can't walk into my shop and expect me to take your attempts to blackmail me lying down. If you think that being the God-dammed Savior of the Wizarding World gives you the right to bully me right into humiliation you've got a very different lesson coming your way. I might be pitiful, but I'm not powerless. I will fight you tooth and nail and you will most definitely never obtain whatever petty satisfaction you are currently seeking."

Potter takes an irritatingly deep gulp of air, looking for all intents and purposes like one of those annoyingly pious muggle martyrs who spent their entire lives doggedly reciting their perfect little nugget of golden wisdom to a mass of growling jungle savages in the hopes of helping them 'see' the light.  
"I don't want to humiliate you, Severus. I'm not here to blackmail you into doing anything you don't want to do, either. I just... You left your vest and one of your socks at my place, OK? You were in such a rush to leave that morning that I don't think your Accio spell was as focused as it should have been and I wanted to make sure you got your things back. Why don't you come over and collect them, say this afternoon around four? We can have a cup of tea together and talk for a little while, get to know each better..."

Severus frowns, instinctively wary of trusting both the apparently harmless invitation and the idea that his Accio spell might have failed. He's cast it plenty of times in the same or even more nerve-wracking situations and it has never failed to work perfectly.  
"You must have shielded those items from my charm-work. Why should I even bother trying to collect them now? What else have you cast on them? I'm not stupid enough to accept those things back without checking them for hexes, Potter. You won't be able to hide whatever you did for long, so..."

Potter simply laughs and the sound is so heartbroken, so thoroughly mirthless, that Severus flinches away. Taking a single step back in order to put much necessary distance between himself and this ashen-faced version of the famous Boy-Who-Lived.  
"I freely admit that I charmed them against your Accio spell, Severus. But I didn't do it to have the chance to cast something nefarious upon you. I kept them with me so that I could do this. I planned to use them to give you a safe enough excuse to come back to my apartment. I wanted to try and draw you in, offer you a chance to let me ease your fears about what will happen now that we've finally been... intimate. I wanted to give you the chance to realize that I can reassure you. I can soothe your current anxiety about all of this. I can tell you to your face precisely what I'm going to do now and what I'm expecting to achieve with my actions. The only thing you have to do is find the courage to dare being alone with me so soon after what happened."

"You can't goad me into going back to your place, Potter. I don't have to prove myself to you. I'm not a bloody teenager, you know? You can keep my fucking sock under your blasted pillow and hug it every night for the rest of your life for all I care!"

The brat smiles tightly at him while those steadily darkening green eyes study him thoughtfully in the tense silence that follows. One second slowly fades away, turning inexorably into the next as it follows the soothing rhythm set forth by the grandfather clock that stands just beside the rarely used till.  
"You might have no compunctions about abandoning a measly sock as a casualty of our skirmish, but... can you say the same thing about that particular vest, Severus? I know it was a present from Albus. The last gift he ever gave you, wasn't it? There is a personalized inscription on the label and I know you wear it every single year on your birthday. You also wear it on Christmas and New year. You wore it on the day you won your potions award and when they finally gave you your Order Of Merlin, First Class. You even wore it to Draco's wedding, didn't you? That faint silver pattern on the lapel is pretty much unmistakable. I've never seen anything like it..."

"Runes... That pattern is the echo left behind by the protective runes that Albus wove into the cloth before he gave it to me. That vest is unique in all the world. It's the only one of its kind that Albus ever bothered to charm and I'm ridiculously fond of it. I swear I'll kill you with my bare hands if you've damaged it on purpose, Potter!"

The seeker appears to be more relieved than upset upon being threatened and Severus frowns uneasily, too puzzled by the brat's inexplicable attitude to be able to ignore it with any degree of success. Potter goes as far as to smile from ear to ear, looking for all intents and purposes like a thoroughly delighted cat who has just feasted on a double ration of cream and each and every one of Severus' internal alarms starts blaring ominous warnings in the privacy of his mind.

"I wasn't so far off after all. You do care about that vest... I've done nothing to it, I swear. I've kept it safe for you, Severus. I planned to give it back from the beginning, only... you failed to barge back into my flat as soon as you realized it was gone. I still don't understand why you did that. I was expecting you to confront me about it's disappearance at the very least..."

Severus' anger dissolves like an ice-cube left in the sun there and then. His cheeks acquire the delicate tint of a thoroughly embarrassed blush and his gaze lowers uncomfortably towards the floor even as his shoulders square, unconsciously straightening his lanky body to its intimidating full length in order to allow him to achieve the forbidding rigidity of a marble statue. He's thus pushed right back inside the skin of his former persona, back to being the despised Severus Snape of former years. Back to hiding in plain sight, locked by his own self-protective instincts inside the unyielding constraints of his old, battered armor even though the war ended long ago and he has learned to loath the character he was forced to play for Albus' god-dammed "Greater Good" with a fierce passion.

"Severus? Are you alright? Your face has gone as blank as the empty page of a diary. I can't read you any longer. You look like..."

"Myself. I look like the man who taught you potions for five interminably long years, Potter. I look precisely like the Severus Snape you've always known."

"No. This isn't you at all. This is what's left of that awful mask you used to wear all the damned time... You've got to leave it behind. I'm not threatening you in any way and you bloody well know it!"

"Who the hell do you think you are? You don't get to tell me what to do about anything! I'll behave in any way I want to and if you don't like what you see you're more than welcome to get right back to your charming little life and leave me in peace to live my own as I see fit! Go on, walk out the fucking door and do not bother to return. I'm tired of your constant pushing, Potter. You're never going to get anything out of me by trying to force me into it."

"I'm not trying to force you into anything, for Merlin's sake! I'm just trying to have a fucking conversation with you."

"Well, I don't want to have a 'fucking conversation' with you. I don't want to see you or listen to you. I don't even want to be in the same room as you are. I've gone as far as to ignore every single missive of yours demanding further contact and yet here you are: you've barreled into my shop and demanded we talk about an extremely personal mistake I made while I was blind drunk. A mistake that I'd rather forget, by the way. You are forcing me to stand here and look at you, listen to your ramblings, breathe the same air that you are breathing despite my obvious lack of desire to do so. How can you even claim with a straight face that you're not trying to force me into doing anything I don't want to do? I want you to disappear from my sight, do you hear me? I want you to leave me alone, Potter. I want you to show me the kind of respect that I most certainly deserve and listen to me when I tell you to get the hell out of my shop!"

Potter's face becomes ferocious in the blink of an eye. His skin loses all color, allowing the otherworldly brightness of his angry emerald eyes to become the unavoidable feature that defines his young face:  
"Fine! If you want me to leave you alone so badly then I most certainly will. I'm half tempted to let you find out exactly how bloody empty you are going to feel once you get precisely what you claim so hard to desire. Sometimes the frightened whispers of our mind become the voice of our worst enemy, Severus. I spent entire years of my life so desperately hell bent on becoming a real Weasley that I dragged the entire family through the most heartbreaking misery...

"I know everything there is to know about hiding behind the soothing mask of the man we either want the world to think we are or honestly believe we should become. You won't be able to keep on living that kind of lie forever. Trying to be who you aren't will eventually destroy you and everything that you love along the way. It will wound everyone you care for and everyone who cares for you in return. It will leave you empty inside, wounded beyond salvation. It will eat away the loving soul that makes you so breathtakingly beautiful, Severus. It will destroy the part of you that makes you... _you._"

**TBC...**


	6. Chapter 6

**_Courting Disaster. Ch 6._**

Severus watches Potter turn around jerkily and walk towards the front door of his shop. He's unable to understand why on Earth the sight of the brat's retreating back is making him feel so god-dammed devastated, but the truth is that he can hardly bear to stand still and watch the seeker leave his life for good.

He's pretty certain that a man like Potter won't bother to offer his heart twice on a silver platter. Not when it has been so unequivocally rejected. Potter will never darken the front room of his shop again. Will no longer care to seek his little corner in Draco's front parlor, offering him quiet company during those interminable dinner parties that Ginevra never seems to tire of organizing. The Gryffindor will walk out of his shop and forget him without pause, moving on sooner or later to far better, greener pastures while he spends the next ten decades sitting idly in front of his fireplace, constantly wondering if the never-ending peace that he'd bought with his rejection had been really worth it. If he'd been one-hundred percent certain that Potter was lying. If he was really so attached to his dreary little existence that he would have still chosen it over the possibility of... more_..._ if he wasn't quite so cowardly.

"Oh, fuck this!" The Gryffindor suddenly hisses just as he reaches the door, startling Severus right out of his gloomy thoughts and he stands there, as paralyzed as a small rabbit caught in the intense glare of a sudden Lumos spell, while Potter's furious steps grind to a complete halt and the man himself proceeds to stand still for what seems like an interminably long second.

Potter's athletic shoulders are hunched

slightly forwards. He seems visibly dejected, like a man who's been condemned to carry around the most unbearable weight known to humankind. His messy dark head shakes from left to right in two rapid jerky motions before he turns around once again, barreling towards Severus with the kind of look in his face that the Slytherin has only ever seen gracing that visage in pictures of the final battle or the million and one victories that the nearly invincible seeker has been skilled enough to collect along his meteoric rise through the ranks of professional Quidditch**.** Potter finally comes to a determined stop right in front of him, looking for all the world like the very image of a seriously ticked off warrior about to engage in a battle that he has no intention of losing.

"You know what? I'll go when I'm good and ready, Severus. If I can't goad you into going back to my apartment then, by Godric, I'm not going to let you goad me into walking out, either. You're not a teenager anymore and neither am I. Isn't that marvelous? I've finally grown up enough to go toe to toe against you. We are on even ground right now and I'm intensely satisfied to be able to inform you that you can't use any of your old tricks to push me away. I might have fallen for them in the past, but I didn't know you back then the way I do now. I want to know why you're reacting like this to such a harmless comment and I want to know it right this second. Do you understand me? You don't get to turn this viciously against me just to force me into walking out without having to bother to offer me a single explanation. I'm an adult and so are you. You owe me some respect and I swear you are going to give it to me!"

Severus' hackles rise in reaction to the bastard's boldness. No one has the right to chastise him in his own shop. No one is going to be allowed to order him about any longer. He stopped bowing down to threats as soon as the war ended.  
"Really? And how are you planning to force me into doing that, Oh-Mighty-Savior? Are you going to hex me to my knees and Crucio me until I beg your forgiveness? I was under the impression that you were a strong moral detractor of that sort of behavior, Potter."

"Do you really want to be the kind of man who hides behind a mask, Severus? Do you really lack the courage to peel that bloody thing off and be yourself once and for all? What do you have to lose? I'm not going to hurt you and I'm not going to walk away, either. I just want to know what makes you tick. I need to understand you better, so that I can try to avoid saying anything that might drive you to become this man again.

"Professor Severus Snape is dead and buried. He was never really alive. He was... a mask. A very good one, I'll give you that. But he was a mask nevertheless and a mask might protect you from the world to a certain degree, but it can't ever make you happy. How could it, Severus? It's not even real. It's just a tool meant to help you hide who you really are from all those who are willing to love you. You were never like this with Albus and I know you'd rather die than show this side of yourself to Draco... Why can't you lower your forbidding shields for me, too?"

"Potter..."

"You can raise them right back up if I prove myself unworthy of your trust, OK? I swear I won't bother you then. But you have to let me in first. You have to give me a proper chance to win you over without casting me away preemptively out of fear. You have to let me show you just how much I could give you before deciding to cast my heart away so callously. These are my emotions we are talking about, Severus. These are my most precious dreams. I don't deserve to be treated like an enemy by you. I've done nothing to earn your derision and I refuse to accept it. Aren't you man enough to tread over another bloke's heart with gentle care?"

Utter discomfort sweeps Severus from head to toes, deflating his peeved anger with the sharp prick of guilt. His windpipe closes altogether and, for a panic-inducing second, he finds himself unable to even breathe. His lungs feel small and constricted, his blood pounds against his every pulse-point like a pack of stampeding wild horses and he's hovering indecisively between the opposite responses of fight or flight, unable to decide which choice to make. Refusing to even choose between a safety that has managed to keep him away from emotional harm for many years and the hazy possibility of the kind of companionship that could very well fill the endless void that his life has become. If only this is true. If Potter actually means what he's claiming. If he has the actual boldness to dare reaching out for... all of it.

"Severus?"

"I wasn't even aware that Albus' vest was missing." He finally whispers quietly into the silence, taking a single step towards the dazzling possibility of forging a future for himself that might not so clearly resemble the heartbreaking loneliness of either his past or his present. "I cast that Accio spell and promptly Disapparated from your place without taking the time to check the bundle of clothes that had flown towards me. By the time I reached home I couldn't stand the sight of them, so I vanished them all to the bottom of my clothing hamper. I haven't looked at them ever since, Potter. I... I've been unable to accept the foolishness of my actions that night."

"Oh, Severus..." Potter attempts to come closer and he feels utterly threatened. It's too much. Simply... too much. It's too soon for all of this and he's already starting to regret the ridiculous impulse that lead him to open up, to expose himself so thoroughly. To make himself so pathetically vulnerable to the Gryffindor's harsh judgment.

"Don't laugh at me. Don't you dare laughing at me, Potter. I'm not a coward. I just... I'm not all that keen on whining over stupid mistakes that can't be rectified, that's all. I'd have gone through those clothes sooner or later. I assure you."

"Our time together wasn't a mistake, Severus. You needed to feel loved on your birthday and ended up in the arms of a man who'd give up a great deal to be given the chance to cherish you. I'd say you were lucky that night. You got precisely what you wanted."

"I wanted sex without repercussions. I wanted to be able to walk away the next day and put my awful weakness behind me. How am I supposed to do that now? You are here already, attempting to confront me despite my clear refusal to acknowledge your every request for further contact. You aren't going to let me forget that ghastly night no matter what I do, are you? I'd say this isn't what I wanted at all. Not by a long shot."

"Oh, it is what you wanted. It might not ever come close to what you were willing to settle for, but it's definitely what you wanted, Severus. You just have to stop lying to yourself for long enough to admit that what you think you can have when it comes to love and what you really desire are not the same thing at all. You wanted safe and casual because you honestly believe that you can't have anything else. But you can. You can have love of the genuine, openly acknowledged and permanent kind. You can have respect, desire, loyalty. You can have anything and everything you dare to ask for and more. I'd willingly turn myself inside out if that would make you happy..."

"You can't be serious." Severus whispers that small, raw-toned denial while his dark gaze seems unable to avoid the intent expression flashing determined green fire across those bespectacled eyes. "Do you have any idea of how many men will give their right arms for the chance to even hear half of the things you've just told me? You could have anyone you wanted, Potter. Anyone at all. You could have the best man that this old world has to offer hanging from your arm as soon as you give him a chance and yet you're offering your affection to... _me_. I'm not good enough for you. I'm not good enough for anyone. Even if I try to force myself to go through the ridiculous idea of allowing you to court me, there's no way that's going to work. I'm just not... "

"Yes, you are. You could be right when you imply that I could have anyone I wanted, but the fact is that I. Want. You. There is no one else out there who can possibly claim to be a better man than you are. Not really. I don't care if you can't see it right now. I can and, since this is my heart's choice to make, my opinion on the matter has definitely more weight than yours. Wouldn't you agree, Severus?"

"You're crazy."

"I'm not, I swear. I just have a great and unique taste in men. Come on, sweetheart, give me a chance... let me take care of you. Trust me..."

Despite his desire to reject the savior's unbelievable avowal of love, the truth is that Potter's sincere-sounding words have been hammering his composure to a pulp with ever-increasing strength since the brat refused to leave. Unable to withstand the pressure of staring straight into the pleading expression so clearly painted over the Gryffindor's eyes Severus takes a single step backwards, attempting to put some much needed distance between himself and the intense, tempting creature who seems hell bent on destroying his pitifully crumbling defenses.

"Please, _please_, don't walk away from me. Not like this, Severus. Give me a chance to fight for you. I'm begging you..." Potter whispers with raw-toned desperation, matching Severus' agitated step backwards with a forward one of his own and he whirls away in frantic retreat, walking briskly towards the shop's wide windows in order to stare sightlessly at the bustling street outside through the slightly smeared glass.

His dark gaze focuses determinedly outwards as he attempts to come to terms with the shame that he feels in reaction to his own frightened withdrawal. He's unable to withstand the thought of turning around to face Potter. He's reluctant to seek refuge behind his old trusty mask again, but he feels quite simply incapable of trusting the brat enough to allow himself the dangerous stupidity of showing Potter precisely how... unsettled... he feels. He's too shaken to even fake his usual phlegmatic detachment and the mere idea of actually daring to expose his unbearable fragility to the Gryffindor feels both alien and suicidal.

"I don't know how I managed to upset you so much, but I'm honestly sorry about it, Severus. I just wish you'd let me in. I can hold you through this, no matter what is causing it. I can take care of you, I promise..." Potter's voice reaches him as if through a dark tunnel and he shrugs one thin shoulder in a clumsy little gesture of disheartened dismissal that betrays his agitation.

A second later his ears catch the unmistakable sound of the seeker's inexorable approach and he closes his dark eyes in exhausted surrender, allowing his tired mind to register the brat's noisy attempts to come near him with the entirety of his body. He remains utterly still as Potter draws ever closer with steps that resonate as loudly as the rumble of thunder in the eerie quiet.

A hand suddenly brushes against the very tips of his loose hair, tangling itself in his soft, dark locks with a touch that seems both hesitant and helpless, making him instantly realize that the Gryffindor feels bereft and afraid too. That he isn't the only one left exposed. That they are both truly on the same boat. Both equally afraid of the other's rejection. Both equally helpless and weakened. Both hurting...

That simple realization somehow makes everything easier, but it also makes the entire situation a lot harder in ways that he's never imagined before. He's so used to dealing with Harry Potter's irritating boldness that he's never even contemplated how he'd cope with the brat's disarming insecurity. He feels inexplicably protective of the creature standing just behind him and his heart pounds in his chest as the touch of the boy's trembling fingertips burns his nervous system all the way from head to toes.

His long frame begins to shake and he's conscious that it shows. He's aware that he's now finally wide open and utterly exposed before the emerald eyes of this man who claims to love him. Of this boy he used to teach. Of the teenager whose hatred he once craved. A child who'd found enough strength within his heart to defend the pariah he'd been at the end of the war from each and every one of his many detractors, testifying in his behalf again and again in a trial that had lasted longer than any other and had ended up being as vicious as the war itself. A savior who had not only destroyed the root of all the darkness he'd so foolishly embraced for all the wrong reasons but who seemed now equally determined to save him from his unrelenting, life-long loneliness...

"Severus?" Potter dares to gasp his given name in a soft sigh that breaks the unbearable quiet and the hand still tangled in his hair opens wide, flattening delicately over his robe-covered shoulder and pressing against it reassuringly. "I'm here. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? I'm here and I'm staying. I'm not going to let go. I can't let you go. Not like this. Not without trying to make you... see."

That quiet promise dangles before his tightly closed eyes like a water drop in the desert, instantly becoming as fiercely coveted as golden temptation itself. He should shun it's dazzling beauty, turn his back on it and escape. He should run away from Potter's dangerous promises as fast as his legs can take him, but he's by now simply unable to take a single step in the opposite direction.

He has been snared by the unbearable beauty of hope and his ever-growing desire to surrender himself to the dream of feeling loved just this once is stronger than his willingness to resist it. His entire frame turns to stone with the effort of remaining where he is, precisely where he is. Looking out through the smeared glass at the world passing him by, just outside the window. He has always felt like this. Exactly like this. He's always played the role of the hungry, forgotten child who's forced to stare longingly at the alluring warmth of a family's loving kitchen through the windowpane of life. He's always been the child the world forgot outside. The teenager everyone left out. The man who has always been denied...

He remembers precisely what he felt while he sat in solitary splendor at the darkest table of The Unfettered Queer on the night of his birthday, self-pityingly disparaging his lonely existence and wondering, like all drunks usually do, what the hell had he ever done to deserve his horrible fate. Potter had appeared out of nowhere and saved him from the bitter taste of solitude that night. The Gryffindor had held him against his heart, sheltered him, soothed the shameful neediness of his soul with disarming care...

Could he really admit that he wanted to have all that care again without being mocked for his vulnerability? Could he really afford to place the very safety of his often wounded heart in Potter's calloused hands? Was he even able to turn his back on the first real possibility that anyone had ever given him to crawl his way into that impossibly bright kitchen that he'd always wanted to be in? Was he really willing to throw away the chance to sleep cradled in Potter's arms just one more time? Was he honestly so cowardly that he'd turn his back on the companionship he so desperately craved out of fear? Was he truly so pathetic that he'd condemn himself to certain loneliness because he didn't have the balls to reach out and admit he wanted... more? Was he really crazy enough to actually doubt the sincerity of the blasted Boy-Who-Lived?

"I don't know if I can give you what you want, Potter. I want to trust you, but I'm not sure I can. I... I've never been good at... romance."

"I'm not good at romance, either. But I'm willing to give it my best shot."

"If this is a trick..." He begins to whisper a warning only to falter mid-sentence when the hand pressed against his shoulder blade twitches slightly. Short nails dig into the thick cloth of his robe, betraying the kind of flustered agitation that he can definitely cope better with when it isn't being shoved directly in his face.

"I'm in love with you. That is not a trick. It's the truth, Severus." Potter says with quiet sincerity and he believes himself brave enough to gamble his heart away like a madman on a self-destructive spree as long as he doesn't have to turn around and face the Gryffindor. As long as he can keep his dark gaze fixed on the oblivious world so determinedly passing him by on the other side of the window.

He can definitely be bold enough and defiant enough and yes, crazy enough to dare reaching out for the impossible while his eyes keep on watching the masses who despise him scurry away from him without bothering to notice his existence. He can send his god-forsaken insecurity packing for one last rebellious ride down the foolish road of hope and, if he ends up burning to cinders for allowing himself the idiocy of such reckless daring, then at least he'll go down feeling less than utterly disappointed with his own terrible choices.

He has to try reaching out for more because not trying would have him losing everything already, anyway, and he's so bloody tired of being a fucking loser. He has played that same god-dammed role for so long now that he knows his lines by heart. He needs a break, even if that's foolish. He needs to become the man Albus so often claimed that he was. He needs to become the Slytherin who should have been a Gryffindor. He needs to feel worthy enough to look at himself in the mirror and he'll never become that man if he insists on cowering from life like a spineless little rat, letting it grind him constantly into the ground.

"One chance, Potter. I'll give you this one chance on the condition that you'll leave me the hell alone if you mess this up so horribly that I'd rather die than grant you another one. Is that understood?"

Potter's hand curls convulsively around his bony shoulder, shaking digits dig quite painfully against bone and muscle, attempting to turn him around to no avail. A sigh ghosts against the back of his neck then. The sound is quiet, but heartfelt and Severus feels its warmth coil somewhere deep within him, waiting for permission to take root and spread all over him. Waiting to claim him. To anchor him. Waiting to... conquer him.

"One chance is all I need, Severus."

"There will be no sex, Potter." He whispers that one condition in a small, flustered gasp and his heart skips a beat when the Gryffindor's warm palm moves away from his shoulder for the first time since he'd started touching him, sliding down his rigid arm ever so slowly, until that foreign hand tangles with his own and they end up palm to palm. Fingers to fingers. Wrist to wrist.

"That's alright. I don't want you for sex. I want you forever, Severus, and nobody finds forever among bed sheets alone."

"You'll bring those items of clothing that you stole from me. I'll be waiting for you here at seven o'clock on the dot. I will not wait for you if you are late and I will not give you another chance. Do you understand me, Potter?"

"Here? You expect us to have our first date, ever, _here_?" The Gryffindor gasps incredulously quite obviously horrified by Severus' choice of venue.

"Why shouldn't it be here? This is private enough. No one will ever know about any of this, if things go pear-shaped, and I'll be able to boot you out as soon as I feel threatened."

"This is your idea of a chance? You are setting us both for failure, Severus..."

Severus turns around then, forcing his companion to take a couple of steps backwards in order to avoid a direct collision with his agitated frame. Widened black eyes seek and find the earnest sincerity shining like a beacon from the depths of the most beautiful emerald orbs that he's ever seen and he forces himself to whisper in ruffled defensiveness:  
"I want to feel safe. I want to have control over this... date... of ours. I want to have privacy, Potter. I don't want to be paraded down the streets of Diagon Alley, hanging from the arm of the blasted Boy-Who-Lived like an ill-fitting accessory. I won't have tomorrow's Prophet laugh at me for being seen dining in your company, do you understand me? I won't allow anyone to insinuate that I might be one of your... men."

"How could anyone call you one of my men, Severus? There are no men in my life. There has only ever been you for years now. Leave the venue to me, please. Trust me a little. You'll be safe and we'll have privacy, I promise you. Just... Let me show you how it's possible to find romance outside the walls of your shop's little front room. We don't have to go chasing old Skeeter's dicto-quill, but we've got nothing to hide, either. We have every right in the world to create the most memorable first date that we can possibly conceive. This is going to be the beginning of our life together, Severus. I won't let you taint the memory of it with fear-induced... mediocrity."

"Potter..."

"No. Just... no. Let's not meet tonight at all, please, Severus. I need time to prepare everything properly. Tomorrow should be perfect, though. I'll come for you at Five o'clock on the dot. Be ready to do this the right way, my love. I've got one chance to woo you. One measly chance, Severus. I can't afford to waste it. I just... can't!"

**TBC..**


	7. Chapter 7

**_Courting Disaster. Ch 7._**

Harry makes a conscious effort to finally stop fidgeting with his hair and steps away from the mirror. Half an hour of nervous combing shows no visible results with the unruly mass that tops his head and he sighs with defeat. His eyes rake over the casual green robes that he's decided to wear, wondering what Severus will make out of them. They are a tad too bright and trendy, but also comfortable enough to have quickly become one of his favorites and so he's been wearing them so often that they have a decidedly commonly-worn look about them.

He's thought long and hard about everything he's planned for this evening, from the comfy clothes he's wearing to the relaxing activities that he's finally settled on. He might have come across as a confident go-getter to Severus, but the truth is that he's more used to allowing others to try to dazzle him with their own ideas of romance than he is to being the man actually doing the wooing.

He's been worrying all day long about his arrangements. Trying to predict how Severus will react to each and every one of his choices, attempting to decide whether his plan is too simple. Too casual. Too reminiscent of a couple of friends goofing around to actually deliver the sort of message that he so desperately is trying to convey to his difficult Slytherin. He doesn't want to overwhelm Severus with anything too formal, but he's wary of offending him by being far too casual.

Ever since he almost made the fatal mistake of walking out of Severus' shop, he has been in a state of absolutely terrified agitation. He'd thought he was emotionally prepared to deal with the stress of being the focus of his beloved's anger, but the truth is that he'd been pretty ill-equipped to deal with the hurt that Severus' stubborn refusal to even listen to him had caused. Thinking back on his behavior as he stands before his mirror Harry is forced to acknowledge the fact that, no matter how many times he tells himself that Severus' reaction to fear is a cutting form of anger, he's too emotionally invested in the man to remember to ignore the awful hurt caused by having all that vicious vitriol directed solely at him.

One chance... Severus has given him a single chance to prove himself worthy of acceptance and, no matter how confident he sounded when he accepted the potioneer's conditions, the plain and simple truth is that he's frightened right out of his mind. What if everything goes wrong? What if his choices are a disaster? What if he manages to offend that prickly and overly defensive creature once again and sparks another horrible bout of fear-fueled anger that he doesn't have a hope in hell of coping properly with?

_'I've got to keep calm. I've got to. I have to remember that Severus is probably as freaked out as I am. Probably more, because he's still expecting a prank while I already know for certain precisely what this is. Nothing will go wrong as long as I remember that he's frightened. He's afraid and he'll be suspicious. He's not trying to hurt my feelings on purpose. He's just protecting himself from me...'_

His wand vibrates in its holder, reminding him that it is almost five already and he takes a calming deep breath. Casting one last worried look towards the mirror he consciously decides that this is the best he can do with his appearance. He just hopes it's good enough for the stern creature he adores beyond both logic and control, beyond restraint...

Double-checking that he has Severus' vest and sock in the pocket of his coat before he leaves, he proceeds to make a small half-turn right where he stands, swiftly removing himself from the familiar confines of his own bedroom and pushing across space towards the man who fills his every thought and guides his every emotion. Towards the man who awaits him in the small front room of a specialized potions shop that stands at the corner of Diagon Alley.

He materializes into the small room that he'd envisioned with a soft pop, opening green eyes to the barely lit emptiness of a space clearly inhabited by shadows. His right hand deposits the small dark bundle of clothing that he'd brought atop the small counter-top that houses the shop's old fashioned till and he takes a look around, double checking the information that his senses have already given him but his mind is still refusing to process.

Despite the fact that he grandfather clock that stands in magnificent splendor right next to the till has begun to chime the hour Severus is clearly absent from the room. Harry's stomach churns with indecision and nerves, with the unpleasant notion that he might have been stood up. Left to come in here eagerly seeking his chance to romance a man who'd never even harbored the intention of allowing himself to be romanced by the likes of him...

The faint sound of a half-growled imprecation reaches his ears at that point, easing at least some of the anxiety that is so very slowly spreading through his every limb at once like an insidious wave attempting to take over his body and drown it without mercy. His gaze rakes the empty room with renewed focus, finally zeroing in on the small, rickety door that stands half-opened just behind the bulky mass of the gigantic clock.

"_So that's were you are hiding..." _Five determined steps forwards take him right to the doorjamb and he peers inside what appears to be Severus' overly tidy office. The man himself is standing in front of the huge bookcase that fills the entire back wall of the otherwise spartan space. He's facing away from the door, clearly fidgeting with the fragile looking pages of the small book that he's holding in his potion-tainted hands.

A loving smile curves Harry's lips in response to the visual confirmation of his earlier suspicious. Severus is nervous indeed. He looks flustered and so clearly unnerved that Harry's own tension dissolves into a single determined thought:  
"_There's no reason for this. Neither of us should be trembling like a new-born calf at the idea of sharing a single platonic date. We are both going to end the night smiling like a pair of teenage fools if it's the last thing I do..."_

"I'm here, Severus." He whispers out loud, watching quietly as his voice reaches the other man as if in slow motion. Gorgeous black eyes snap up towards him in the next second and he's left there, paralyzed by the clear trepidation that flashes through that gaze, unmasked.

"So you've come... I wasn't sure if you would. I..."

Harry hears the raw tone that gives life to every word, reads the crystal clear dismay flashing openly in those eyes and understands that, despite Severus' relief at seeing him finally here, a very large part of the man wishes he hadn't shown up. That he'd been a fake. A lying, hateful bastard. The kind of simple threat that this hardened Slytherin would have known precisely how to deal with...

"You look wonderful, Severus." He interrupts the potioneer's words hastily, both unwilling and unable to cope with the idea of hearing any of those thoughts brought right out into the open, no matter how badly expressed.

Severus takes a step backwards. His long fingers snap closed the book he's holding onto with a loud bang and he looks down towards his hand, refusing to meet his gaze and acknowledge the comment. Refusing to take a single step closer or voice a similar sentiment.

Harry sighs in the strained silence, gathering as much of his patience as he can muster and decides to enter the office. Walking determinedly towards the still, silent man who is clearly tracking his approach from the corner of his eyes.

"Look at me." He finally pleads once he stands right before that stern, lanky figure and the pale face that he adores raises ever so slowly, directing the full force of that gorgeous dark gaze into a full-on confrontation with his own."Everything is going to be alright, Severus. You are going to enjoy yourself and you are going to be safe. I promise."

The tension holding those reedy shoulders so stiffly eases inch by inch as his companion tilts his head in elegant acknowledgment of his words of reassurance and Harry watches him place his book fussily back on the bookcase, unconsciously caressing the old leather spine with the pad of his index finger as he pulls away from it, reminding Harry so strongly of the moment when that very same fingertip traced the line of his own exposed throat with equally distracted sensuality that his breath catches in his lungs and he has to bite his lower lip in order to avoid the thoroughly inappropriate groan that is trying its best to make it past his lips.

"Are you ready to leave?" He asks slightly breathlessly and forces himself to smile as brightly as he can when Severus looks at him askance.

"Where, precisely, are you taking me, Potter? You look awfully casual for the kind of full on 'date' I was expecting you to concoct. I was under the impression that you wanted to pull out all the stops to avoid... '_mediocrity_'."

Harry's nerves are back with a bang and, although he laughs at the relatively gentle barb, he's way too anxious to cope with his beloved's usual snark.  
"Be nice, please... I'm freaking out already, no matter how calm I might appear to you, and the last thing either of us needs right now is to end up tangled in a pointless argument out of habit."

"Potter..."

"It's OK. Just... let's move on, please, Severus. I think we need to get out of here and allow our senses to take over. We are both over-thinking this."

His hand shoots out in the next blink, grabbing Severus' wrist with a slightly shaky grip and turning them both in place side by side. The awful constriction of a full blown Side-Along-Apparation takes over his senses before he can worry any further about his companion's reaction to what could be quite easily constructed as shameless manhandling and, by the time his feet find solid purchase on the other side of the magical vortex they'd just passed through, he has more important things to focus on. Like Severus' swift and clearly annoyed removal of that pale and breathtakingly slender wrist from all contact with his fingers or the disoriented look he casts around before frowning with crystal-clear puzzlement.

"Where the hell are w...?" A small gasp of what Harry is sincerely hoping to be dazzled recognition rents the air as soon as that ebony-black gaze settles over the distinctive shape of the Belfry Tower, which is soaring towards the heavens in all its magnificently golden-lit glory directly in front of them, gorgeously framed by the backdrop of the amber-tainted pink sky that is so typical of continental sunsets in the middle of January.

"Bruges. This is... dear Merlin, Potter, you've brought me all the way to Magical Bruges. How in the name of Salazar did you even find out that I've always...?" The puzzled question comes to a sudden halt, clearly betraying the fact that the man who'd been so freely voicing it has finally remembered his usual self-protective wariness and is attempting to hold back as much personal information as he can.

Harry doesn't care, though. He's delighted with the wonder that is so clearly plastered all over Severus' pale visage. He feels accomplished and happy, so relieved at having so obviously managed to both surprise and please his companion that his usual bold self-confidence begins to settle back over his shoulders, like a familiar winter cloak.  
"How did I know that you've always wanted to see Bruges? You told me all about it once. We were sitting together at the same table during the reception Draco hosted to celebrate his engagement and somehow the general conversation turned to suggesting places for the happy couple to spend their three week long winter honeymoon...

"Everyone agreed that the most romantic destination to be found in the middle of January was a secluded tropical beach. Everyone but you that is, Severus. You spoke about the calm and peaceful atmosphere of this small magical city and described a picture you've seen long before on a travel brochure. You mentioned how some enterprising half blood had decided to replicate these very same cobbled streets and the tower before us when he set out to build the muggle version of this town. You spoke of magical Bruges with the unconscious openness of a man who genuinely thought the place beautiful, with the longing of someone who desperately wished to see it... That's one of my most precious memories of you."

Severus turns to look at him with a slight frown. The puzzled expression that is plastered all over his narrow face is unusually open, broadcasting his undeniable bewilderment in the glowing light coming off the tower.  
"How can you remember something that I said so casually almost five years ago?"

"I remember everything you've ever told me since you came back to England. You might have thought our brief encounters during one or other of Ginny's many soirees to be utterly casual, but the truth is that I've... lived... just for them for a very long time. I've treasured every little moment of idle chit-chat that you've, no doubt, been forcing yourself to share with me out of politeness all along. You mean everything to me. Everything, Severus."

"Potter..."

"It's alright. You don't have to look so worried, my love. I'm not going to pounce on you right in the middle of The Markt. I'm not planning to pounce on you at all, unless you very clearly indicate that such advances will be welcome. I'm on my best behavior, can't you see? You only gave me one chance."

A wave of crystal clear relief washes away Severus' wary expression in response to his attempt at lightening up the heavily emotional atmosphere that he'd so unwittingly created.  
"I remember your boasting that one chance was all you needed, Potter, so don't you dare going around whining about my miserly approach to fairness."

This time Harry's laughter is both surprised and genuine. He grins from ear to ear, raising a confident hand to pull Severus forwards by the elbow, looking for all intent and purposes like a happy young tourist eager to visit the fabled tower before him.  
"Oh, sush, you! I'll have you know that my gorgeous Prince is anything but miserly. He's the soul of fairness itself. That's why he so magnanimously offered me one single chance to prove I can dazzle him. He knows perfectly well that I've no need of further chances and doesn't want to upset me with the implication that I might need more time than that. One chance for me to show him what I'm actually made of sounds fair enough to me."

Severus smiles at the shameful boasting despite himself, feeling surprisingly comfortable as he allows the seeker's eager tugging to pull him across the last few steps of The Markt's square towards the Belfry's entrance.  
"Don't be so shameless, Potter. Next you'll be telling tell me that your soul is golden indeed..."

Gorgeous green eyes focus on him with carefree delight and the brat has the audacity to smile cheekily at him, flashing him a picture that's all dimples, white teeth, messy hair and the simple charm of unfettered joy.  
"Of course I'm golden from head to foot, Severus. I'm quite shocked that you doubt it. Haven't you been paying attention to the silly names they've given me over the years? I've always had a rather creepy feeling regarding the Wizarding World's obsession with all things golden. It's like no other metal matters and no other jewel has value. I can actually see myself in silver. Even more importantly, I can see _you_ in silver."

"I don't think it's appropriate to talk about jewelry on our first date, Potter. Please do not make the mistake of getting ahead of yourself."

Harry's confident steps falter and he comes to a sudden halt right in the middle of the tower's lobby. Tourists walk right around them, hurrying to join the swiftly moving lines of visitors climbing up the steep staircase that leads to the top of the building and its breathtaking views. A pair of deep emerald eyes settle over him with sudden sobriety, studying his pale face intently, as if that is all it takes for their owner to be able to read him like a book or a magazine. As if he's a puzzle mastered long ago, but never quite forgotten. A mystery that marvels rather than intrigues. A source of constant thought and reflection that almost always inspires some sort of peaceful, deep emotion.

"You are right, of course, Severus. Please forgive my enthusiasm and don't take my shameless hints seriously. I've got years of crazy dreams about us stored inside my head. This is all too new for you, whereas I've been dating you in my head for a long time. Everything I've seen in these last years, everywhere I've been, has been enjoyed with the imaginary reminder that I had to see this museum or go to that obscure little park in the middle of nowhere because you'd have wanted to see it, if you'd been there with me... I can't visit a robe store or even read the newspaper without wondering what would draw your eye. What you'd think about it. What you'd enjoy the most. Tonight I feel like I'm living one of my usual daydreams while being finally awake and I can see how fast I'm running way ahead of you, spooking you without actually meaning to do so."

Severus looks away from the Gryffindor's eager face, idly wondering how on Earth he'd managed in the past to miss the obvious adoration flashing in those emerald-green eyes like a mile-wide beacon.  
"I'm never going to match whatever image of me you've created in your head, Potter. I'm a man of flesh and blood. I'm just... _me_."

"Yes. You are you. And you are everything I want, Severus. The man I so often dream about is a pale image of you. Not a better, shinier version. You don't have to worry about disappointing me. That's my job in this little drama. I'm the one who must charm you as I am: a mere man of twenty five with more fame than substance to his name. A boy with a past you don't care for and a job you probably think worthless. I'd say I have more reasons to feel insecure than you'll ever have, at least with regards to me."

Severus frowns:  
"That's ridiculous, Potter. You're..."

"Let's not bring The-Boy-Who-Lived here, please, Severus. Let's leave that blasted mask back home, where it belongs. I don't want to ruin our first date with all that... baggage. I have a wonderful evening planned out, my love.

"I want to take you up to the tower, so that we can feast our eyes on the gorgeous sight of magical Bruges extended like a small fairy-tale land right beneath our feet. I want to share with you my first taste of the typical dinner of mussels and beer that's traditional here. I want to stroll through the moon-lit park on the other side of town after dinner hand in hand, Severus, and when we reach the end of the first winter garden I want to catch one of those palomino-driven carriages and have it ride us back along the canals all the way back here.

"I want to end this date sharing a freshly-made chocolate waffle while we sit on the steps of the Basilica, watching the world go by together... I want to lose myself here with you, Severus, and leave behind all those things that might threaten the peaceful night that I've envisioned. Please, _please_, let's not talk about Harry Potter and Severus Snape anymore tonight, I'm begging you. Let's just be Severus and Harry, together at long last, with no last names to haunt us."

The Slytherin's wary expression softens ever so slightly. Black eyes fill with a faraway look that betrays the very same sort of wistful longing that Harry is pretty sure must be painted across his own features. He realizes in that second that their date will be a success. Whether he's conscious of it or not Severus' heart is also longing for the sort of evening he'd just described and he is, at this very moment, attempting to envision it with his mind's eye. They've found common ground at long last. This is something they can share. Something that unites them. Something they both long for and will be able to enjoy together...

"Severus?" Harry whispers his companion's name in a tone gone soft with gentleness. His hand dares to settle once again over a spindly forearm and a sigh of sheer relief escapes his slightly chapped lips when those unfathomable black eyes focus on him once more with a fierce sort of hunger peeping cautiously out from deep within.

"Fair enough. Let's go up to the tower and kick-start this date of ours, then. If you are able to deliver even half of what you're promising I might have to agree with your shameless boasting and admit that you are not the kind of man who squanders his chances. At least not on your first dates... Harry."

The soft twinkle of his own laughter precedes them up the stairs and Harry can't help but grin from ear to ear as he watches Severus roll his eyes with fake dismay. An impious mood settles over him and he surrenders to it joyfully, smiling ever so cheekily at his companion before informing him boldly:  
"I'm not the sort of man who'll squander his chances on his second date, either..."

**TBC..**.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 8.**_

Severus wakes to the insistent tap-taping of an owl's beak against his windowpane. He blinks blearily into the dawn's soft white light, frowning at the bird with sleepy displeasure. The persistent creature refuses to be quiet, so he pushes his warm blankets away and steps into the unpleasantly cold morning air.

His bare feet sweep across the freezing wooden floorboards and he swears under his breath, reminding himself for the millionth time this winter to either add a seasonal warming charm to the floor or get a bloody rug. The owl catches sight of him and stops its awful racket, alighting gracefully on the narrow windowsill in order to wait patiently for him to open the latch.

A few seconds later he's left all alone once more in his small, tidy bedroom. His toes are beginning to freeze, but he's been nailed to the spot by the fact that the note nestling harmlessly in his hand hasn't come from a business associate, as he'd initially assumed. It's not a message from Draco, either. It is a note from Harry...

His long fingers twitch reflexively around the rolled up missive and his breath hitches loudly in the eerie quiet as his mind bombards him with flash after flash of different and increasingly hurtful possibilities regarding the unknown contents of this letter.

Their date was a success as far as he's concerned. He'd been initially apprehensive about how it would go, but had ended up being pleasantly surprised by Harry's easy acceptance of his many little hang ups. The fact that they had dined in a small, casual establishment instead of the kind of ostentatious bistro that he'd been dreading had made the evening all the more relaxing in his opinion, less like a properly romantic dinner date and more like the beginning of a tentative friendship.

The food had been simple but gloriously tasty and their stroll through a deserted winter-frosted park, just afterwards, had been equally pleasant. He'd balked at Harry's desire to hold his hand as they walked side by side, but had been unceremoniously ignored, and so it was that he'd ended up taking his first ever hand-in-hand romantic stroll in the middle of Magical Bruges at forty five years of age.

"Talk about being a late bloomer, Severus..."He whispers under his breath, flinching ever so slightly when that bitter acknowledgment shatters the heavy silence that surrounds him with the shocking power of most thoroughly unwelcome truths.

His dark eyes close ever so slowly and he sighs into the returning quiet with a defeated sort of heaviness. He's barely woken up and he's already tired to the bone of this newborn day. He's tired of this morning that has barely begun. Tired of the fear that the very sight of the small note he's just received has managed to create within him. He's tired of feeling this unbearable paranoia and the damaging self-pity that is ruining the first instant in years when receiving an owl at first light doesn't immediately translate to either another business deal notification or Draco's most recent attempt to keep an eye on him. He's tired of being the sort of man who has more regrets than joy in his day to day life. The kind who'll create those regrets even when there's no reason whatsoever for him to have any. The kind who throws away his chances out of simple... insecurity.

Harry Potter has been nothing short of the most perfect date that he's ever had. He'd been attentive, friendly, and utterly charming. The Gryffindor had behaved in such gentleman-like manner at every stage of their date that he'd been both shocked and delighted in equal measure. He'd arrived home last night feeling hopeful about something for the first time in ages and now, faced with this thoroughly unexpected little note in the cold light of morning, he can't cope with the idea of allowing himself to return to the ugly reality of the world he's been inhabiting all his life.

No matter how loudly his heart tells him to stop doubting the seeker until the man actually does something to deserve becoming the focus of his usual paranoid suspicion, his mind keeps reminding him that romantic dates in Bruges with the most dazzling hero that the Wizarding World can possibly lay claim to are just not the kind of thing that happens to him. Ever.

He's never had luck like this in anything, least of all when it comes to his rather abysmal love-life and, despite how hard he's trying to hold on to the fragile sense of trust that filled him just last night, the truth is that he can't suppress the thought that if Potter's plan has been to trick him all along and expose him for the deluded old fool that he most certainly is, then this is definitely the perfect moment for the brat to start pointing a laughing finger in his direction before proceeding to peel off his lying mask. This would be the right time to expose the ugly truth that hides beneath the wonderful evening they shared last night. This would be the most wounding method of informing him, once and for all, of just how badly he'd been had. Of telling him precisely how successfully he's been duped into allowing another cocky Gryffindor bastard to expose him as a pathetic loser...

His Adam's apple travels up and down the long line of his throat, pulled as if through a jerkily held cord by his constant attempts to swallow the bitter taste of the soul-breaking suspicion that its climbing up the back of his throat. His eyes close and his head bows while his reedy shoulders hunch slightly forwards and he fights against the growing certainty that his foolish dream of love might have been so ridiculously short-lived.

_'No. It can't be... This is Potter you are talking about, Severus. Potter can't lie with any sort of conviction. His acting skills are so abysmal that he wouldn't have been able to fake the sort of outright devotion that he showed you last night. Whatever this note says, it's not a hurtful goodbye. You know it can not be. That wouldn't make any sense...'_

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" He finally sighs explosively, growing beyond annoyed with himself as he forces his freezing feet to walk back towards the comforting warmth of his rumpled bed. He plops wearily among his blankets, puling on the heavy quilt until it falls over his exposed toes and shivering legs, burying himself waist-deep in the still warm layers before returning his attention to the letter.

He supposes he could look at it without opening it until the bloody cows come home, but whatever it may contain won't actually disappear and his self-protective Slytherin instincts keep reminding him of the fact that knowing your enemy's plans as soon as they are hatched usually helps you minimize the damage they might cause you...

"Get a fucking grip, man. Po... Harry is _not _your enemy. He's never been your enemy. You fought on the same side during the war. He's Ginevra's dearest friend, a charming youth who has shown you nothing but respect in the last few years and now... There's no reason to be afraid. He's probably written something maddeningly mushy. He's a Gryffindor, after all. Everybody knows that Gryffindors tend to be sickeningly sentimental when they are... infatuated."

A wary sigh rents the air as his dark eyes contemplate the rolled up piece of parchment with downright trepidation. He's inexplicably afraid of what it might contain, utterly reluctant to be proven right either way. There's a giant part of him almost praying for it to bring this madness to a swift end. He's hoping with all the might of his cowardly little heart for Potter's fantastic promises to be nothing but a cleverly constructed deception. He'll be wounded by the boy's vindictiveness for a while, but... he'll feel better in the end and a hell of a lot safer. He'll feel relieved too. And... vindicated. He'll be able to go back to his dreary little life, accepting its tedious patterns with the self-consoling reassurance that he'd been right all along. He'd tried reaching out for more, but it hadn't been meant for him. It had all ended up being a bright mirage, a hurtful lie. A fragile little dream that hadn't been strong enough to withstand the harsh light of sheer... reality.

Returning to his hopelessly lonely existence doesn't frighten him as much as the idea of having actual confirmation of Potter's sincerity does. He'll be forced to acknowledge a life-time worth of ruthlessly suppressed longing. Forced to recognize that he's mad enough to honestly desire... love. Forced to look at the world in the face and expose his fragility before all and sundry because Potter is... Potter. The blasted golden Savior of The Wizarding World, himself. He's adored and revered. Treated like a god-dammed messiah wherever he goes. How on Earth will he actually cope with having everyone laugh raucously at the very idea that he might be crazy enough to believe himself worthy of such companion? How will he cope with the vicious public scorn that such unequal association will bring forth? How can he possibly keep his precious dignity intact once he's finally forced to come out of the relative anonymity of his safe little life in order to face everyone's reaction to their... their...

"Courtship, Severus. You might as well just call it what it is. Po... Harry wants to court you. He's made that perfectly clear and, if this note contains some sort of ridiculously sappy recollection of last night's dinner date then you'll have to make up your mind about what to do, won't you? You'll have to either go on forwards or halt this madness in it's tracks and remain forever static. You'll have to chose between becoming Albus' mis-sorted little Gryffindor or the wary Slytherin you believe yourself to have been all along. You'll have to make the kind of decision that will change your future forever, one way or the other..." He forces that terrifying truth out into the open, growling it into rebellious existence with a reckless sort of fierceness. The words shatter the quiet that surrounds him and he listens to them intently, refusing to allow himself the small comfort of flinching as the terrifying idea sinks slowly into his psyche.

He finally gathers enough strength to slide the very tip of his potion-tainted index finger under the blue ribbon that keeps the parchment firmly curled into a roll, pulling the small cord loose with visibly trembling hands. He unrolls the thick paper, flattening it slowly as he forces himself to take just one last shuddering breath before directing his dark gaze down towards the familiarly messy script that he immediately recognizes from the million and one essays he must have corrected during the brat's school years.

_-Good morning, my prince..._

_Please forgive the mushy nickname as one of those incomprehensible Gryffindor quirks and allow me to use it in the foreseeable future. I've always yearned for the freedom of calling you by a name that is only mine to use. _

_I know you'll argue that very few people call you Severus, but still... that name belongs to Albus Dumbledore's portrait and Minerva Mcgonagal. To Poppy Pomfrey and Molly Weasley. To Ginny, Shacklebolt and Arthur. To all of those who love you as a friend but will never adore you like I do._

_I realize that your feelings towards me are nothing beyond a startled sort of curiosity. I understand that you've never thought about me on romantic terms before but I'm sincerely hoping that last night allowed you to see how very well suited for each other we actually are. We could be... perfect... together, Severus. We could be the end of each other's solitude._

_I went to sleep with a smile on my face and woke, just now, with your name on my lips. I'm wishing you were here so hard that I couldn't help myself and ended up writing you this note just to say good morning. _

_I bet you are thinking I'm crazy right now... and I wonder if you'll bother to answer this note at all. You've never responded to any of the others so I'm guessing that you won't. I suppose an answer to this isn't really necessary. I'm just rambling idiotically at you, I know, but... It'd be nice to receive one anyway. It'd be a relief to have some sort of confirmation that I didn't dream last night and that you actually enjoyed our date as much as I did._

You agreed to give me one chance and I know that I promised to walk away if you weren't convinced at the end of it, so I feel I must ask you this one question even though the very idea of doing such a thing is making my guts churn with the most terrible dread. Are you willing to let me woo you further, Severus? Should I plan our second date or should I... let go?

_Please, do not let yourself walk away from us in response to fear. I'm as scared as you are, I swear. But happiness never knocks on a door that's firmly closed. Why would it? It has enough work to do as it is without wasting time on lost causes. _

_Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a good morning, my dear prince. Have a wonderful day, Severus. I'll be thinking about you every second, every minute and every hour, all day long..._

_Yours always._  
_Harry.-_

Severus blinks as he reads the entire thing a second time, just to make sure that Potter's actually written exactly what he thinks he read on his first go and a sudden, aching knot of sheer emotion settles on his chest like a huge boulder. He's never received a letter quite like this. He's never been called _'my dear prince'_ by anyone. He's never been begged to think with his heart instead of his head. He's never been told that he's... adored.

Potter's little note is making him feel exposed. It's touching a part of him that has always remained hungry. It's soothing a hurt that he's never realized he's been carrying around inside and it's making him feel cared for in a way that doesn't involve his health or general well being.

Potter is making a bold play for his heart and in this second, seating quietly among his pile of blankets while re-reading the seeker's letter for the third time with disbelieving wide eyes, he feels unreasonably delighted. He feels charmed into smiling with unfamiliar fondness at the messily scripted parchment that he's holding while his heart pounds a mile a minute and a loud, dizzying roar thunders mightily in his ears. He feels precisely like a man who has just received the first love-letter of his life ought to feel and the rush of terrified excitement that is making him shift restlessly in his warm nest of blankets is exactly the kind of emotion that he's never felt before, but has always longed to experience.

"This is madness... You are a dammed little bastard, Potter. You wrote all this on purpose. You must have known that I wouldn't be able to walk away from... _you_... after reading this letter. How could I? This is precisely what I've always wanted and you've just given it to me on a silver platter..." He groans under his breath just as he finally manages to drag his widened gaze away from the slightly crumpled note in order to stare blankly into empty space with throat-drying trepidation.

He's literally bubbling with so many overwhelming emotions that he can't begin to unravel the nature of them all. He's aware that he's ecstatic, relieved, dazed and afraid in equal measure. He feels hopeful and wary at the same time, reckless enough to grab his wand on a whim and summon a piece of parchment and a quill from the desk that sits in the corner of his room before deciding to pen a simple enough response that might not be quite as verbose as Harry's syrupy missive, but he hopes will convey at least some of his growing... regard... with equal clarity:

_-Good morning to you too, Harry._

_I remember your shameless boast about not being the kind of man who squanders his second chances either. So I challenge you to deliver what you, so confidently, promised._

_Thank you for a wonderful date and... for this letter. I've never received the likes of it before and the experience wasn't completely unwelcome, despite the overflowing Gryffindor sentimentality._

_Kind regards  
Severus-_

His eyes rake over those few sentences as he sits back against his pillows for a single doubt-filled moment. Can he really afford to walk down the road he'll have to travel if he allows himself the recklessness necessary to send this? Will he be able to live with his own cowardice if he doesn't? Does he really want to risk so much for something that might never work, anyway? Potter and himself... it sounds utterly ridiculous, doesn't it? But it doesn't feel ridiculous at all. It feels wonderful and frightening. It feels... right... somehow, against all the odds. It feels like he's finally found something worthy of fighting for. Something valuable and clean. Something... pure.

He scrambles off the bed and rushes towards his desk, searching inside the top-most drawer for one of his distinctive black ribbons. He curls his response into a small and tidy tube, binding it deftly close before summoning his massive horned owl with a single snap of his potion-tainted fingers.

"Take this message to Harry Potter." He addresses the animal clearly, unlocking the window in the next second with a sharp wave of his wand and watching Hermes fly off into the early morning sky in search of the only man who's ever dared to call him _'my prince'_ to his face, at least in writing.

"I must be mad..." He whispers into the eerie quiet left behind by his departing bird and can't suppress the small shiver of terror that runs down the entire length of his spine as he closes the window and stands beside it, staring thoughtfully up at the gray clouds that have just swallowed the lighting-fast shape of his owl and wishing with all his heart to have made the right choice at long last. Praying to have finally found the right hands to place his wounded faith into and desperately hoping that Harry Potter has the actual ability to deliver everything that he's promised...

**TBC...**


	9. Chapter 9

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 9.**_

Harry watches Severus prowl up and down the waist-high rows crammed full of softly swaying blooms through worried green eyes. Although the Slytherin had seemed relatively calm when he'd showed up at his shop in order to make good on his promise to deliver another semi-public, yet private enough, second date he's been clearly on edge since they arrived at their destination.

Watching him turn the corner restlessly a few paces ahead of him Harry bites his lower lip with growing unease, wondering for the hundredth time in the last half hour if bringing the other man here has been an awful mistake. He'd thought long and hard about going to the theater instead, but had ended up deciding against it out of respect for Severus' acknowledged desire to avoid being in the public eye as much as humanly possible and now he can't help the unwelcome suspicion that, by trying to indulge his beloved's desire for privacy, he might have ended up disappointing him with his choice of venue.

"Is there something wrong with this place, Severus? You look restless and... annoyed. I assumed that you'd appreciate seeing so many medicinal plants under a single, weather-controlled roof, but now I'm not so sure about that. I was trying to give you something I thought you'd enjoy while keeping our outing private. Not many people realize that these hothouses are open year-round so we have the place mostly to ourselves, in case you are worrying about that."

Those reedy black-clad shoulders shift uncomfortably as their owner finally stops his anxious pacing, coming to a sudden halt directly in front of a profusion of white orchids with strangely frayed petals.  
"I've never seen one of these outside a book." Severus mutters out loud, obviously attempting to offer him some sort of oblique apology for his current behavior without having to actually explain the source of his discomfort and Harry's heart sinks all the way down to his toes.

"We don't have to stay here if you don't like the place, my love. I've messed up, somehow, and I'm sorry that my choice has managed to upset you so much. We could still make it to the theater if we leave right now. I'm pretty sure they'll ignore our casual attire if we show enough contrition and whip up a couple of last minute tickets for the great Harry Potter and his guest..."

Despite his expectation to the contrary Severus doesn't receive his apologetic offer as well as he expects him to and he ends up frowning with puzzled anxiety as he watches that usually pale face acquire a distinct green sheen and those black eyes darken even further with crystal clear guilt when they finally settle over him.  
"No. There's no need to relocate at all. I... This isn't the kind of place I expected you to take me and I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the idea that you know me way too well for my comfort, Po... Harry."

Relief floods Harry's quivering form from the top of his head all the way down to his toes and he smiles with delighted glee, approaching his companion slowly enough to avoid startling him into further retreat but with far more confidence than he'd dared to show since their arrival.  
"Did you really think that you managed to hide your encyclopedic knowledge of flowers successfully? I'm sorry to burst your bubble, my prince, but you tend to be rather obvious in your passions. Listening to any conversation between Narcissa Malfoy and you about the state of her greenhouse blooms would put professor Sprout in a estate of pure bliss. I'd bet you know the actual name of most of these plants. Even this flower that you can't stop admiring looks to me like another gorgeous, if odd, little orchid but I bet you know exactly what its called. You probably know a hell of a lot more than that about it, don't you?"

Severus' breath hitches just as Harry finally reaches him, coming to a halt beside his tall and flustered figure. There is a visible blush painting those elegant cheekbones a delicate shade of pink and his dark haired Slytherin looks both wary and strangely uncertain, almost like a doe posed on the very verge of flight who hasn't yet decided to take that first leap away from perceived danger.  
"It's called the White Egret Flower or Habenaria Radiata, if you want the exact name, Harry. This orchid is endemic to Japan and it's often associated with the idea of loss. There's an old legend that claims the White Egret to be the flower one should offer only to those who are expected to be lost forever, never to return back to whichever place they got it from or whoever gave it to them. This is a symbol of goodbye. A small homage to all those things that... fly... away."

Harry swallows his unease and looks down towards the delicate stalks topped with small, bird-shaped flowers, wondering why Severus' mind has chosen to fix on these particular blooms even as he lifts a single fingertip to touch a small ragged-looking petal with careful gentleness.  
"It's a beautiful form of goodbye, I think. Not that it really matters all that much... I suppose if you care enough about someone to give him one of these, something inside you must be praying all along for your hunch to be proven wrong."

"I tried to conjure one of this flowers once. I wanted to give it to Albus before he left on that useless last trip of his... I still remember the relief I felt when the transfiguration didn't take. I was stupid enough to convince myself that, since I hadn't been able to give it to him, it must mean that he was bound to return to Hogwarts..."

Harry's throat closes tight at the pain so clearly turning that smooth, gorgeous voice into a harsh hissed rumble. His fingers tense under the fragile-looking petal and he moves them swiftly away and out of sight, closing them into a small, white-knuckled fist in order to avoid making a grab for Severus' shaking arm.  
"He did return, my love. He didn't die away from home." He finally whispers softly, aching all the way down to his bones with the instinctive desire to gather that tall and lanky frame and plaster it against his own pounding heart with as much gentleness as he can possibly muster. Eager to offer his clearly hurting beloved all the comfort that he's so willing to give him, but is pretty darned certain won't be particularly well received at the moment.

"He died anyway. He didn't even make it into the castle." Severus reminds him quietly and there's something so very fragile about the way in which he holds himself so rigidly straight that Harry can't help comparing him once again to a young, wary and wounded doe. He's so hesitant to come forth, so very afraid and reluctant to accept comfort, so breakable in his beauty...

"Maybe we should buy a handful of these. You could lay them on his tomb the next time you visit him. I'm sure he'll be chuffed to be given a poetic Japanese goodbye. He was always a bit of a showman, that old coot."

Severus' dark eyes settle over the small flowers with a thoughtful sort of intensity. Delicate white fingertips trace the small winged petals as he admits with raw-toned ferocity:  
"I was so furious with him that I wanted to hit him... We fought like crup and kneazle the last time I ever saw him. I never had the chance to say goodbye properly. I... It was the same with your mother, too. I'm pretty terrible at this sort of thing, Potter. Telling someone I care about how much they mean to me seems as impossible as trying to recreate Hogwarts single-handedly."

The moment hangs between them as they stand side by side, watching those ragged little flowers through sorrow-filled eyes. They have managed to share part of their painful past in a way that Harry knows Severus Snape hasn't had all that many chances to experience before now. It must be terrifying for a man as formal and usually reticent as his companion tends to be to have opened quite so much to another human soul. Harry's heart feels both heavy and grateful in equal measure. He's both breathless and shaken by the unexpected turn that his planned picnic date in a beautiful but isolated Scottish hothouse garden has just taken. He feels happy and sad and hopeful for their future in a way that he hasn't found the courage to dare feeling before now, because he knows that whatever has happened to make his companion decide that he's trustworthy enough to keep so many of his secrets safe will also grant him access to a thousand other carefully guarded thoughts and feelings. To a thousand little quirks that this man doesn't ever share freely. He's been finally granted access to the shy creature he's been glimpsing as if through a hazy glass these last few years. He has entered the small and exclusive club of those who've earned the right to actually _see _the real face of one of the greatest spies who ever lived.

Golden-toned fingers seek and curl around potion-tainted ones while his green eyes raise ever so slowly to stare right into the ebony-colored depths of Severus' widened gaze.  
"You could start with hello, my prince. There's no reason to go all the way down to goodbye with most people and the things that go in the middle will either come to you at the right moment or be assumed by those of us who adore you just as you are. I bet Draco doesn't care about the fact that you very rarely -if ever- tell him that you love him, but I've seen the two of you together and, trust me, Severus, your care for him shines through despite your lack of words. Professor Dumbledore knew how you felt about him and so did my mother, too. You've got no reason to regret never having been given the chance to tell them goodbye to their face..."

Severus' hand grips his for a brief second before the man pulls it hastily away. He takes a rattled deep breath and a single step backwards, breaking eye contact with him to gaze around the empty hothouse with crystal-clear discomfort.  
"You are a strange mixture of perception and boldness, Po... Harry. I have the uneasy certainty that you can read me like a book most of the time. It's... disconcerting."

"So I know that you have a heart and genuinely like flowers... there's no reason for any of that to be a state secret, Severus. There's no reason for you to look so unsettled by my awareness of it, either. You know a hell of a lot about me, too."

"But you've always been an open book whereas I have spent most of my life trying to hide my thoughts away. Feeling this exposed makes me nervous."

"Is that why you were pacing up and down the flowerbeds like a caged hippogriff? You gave me the fright of my life. I thought I had botched our date, you git!"

"I'm sorry. I've already told you that I'm pants at this sort of thing. I wish I hadn't gone all emotional on you just now, but... trying to keep my response to your choice of venue under wraps seems to have made it all the more difficult for me to cope with the unexpected sight of the White Egret."

"That's alright. I'm not perfect at this either and I'd rather you allow yourself to show whatever emotions you are feeling at any given time than watch you struggle to keep them all bottled up and hidden from my sight. Getting to know one another is the entire point of courtship, Severus."

"I could argue that you already know me better than most people, Harry." The slytherin tells him with a small chuckle and Harry's mild sense of disquiet evaporates like morning dew in the presence of sunshine.

"I don't know you nearly as much as I wish to, my love. But I'm hoping you'll keep on letting me stick around for long enough to learn precisely what makes you tick."

Thoughtful dark eyes settle over him for a long second, studying his face intently in the unforgiving light of the bright Lumos spell that illuminates the hothouse despite the fact that the natural light of the winter evening faded hours ago.

"I'd like to learn what makes you tick, too, Harry Potter." Severus finally whispers into the quiet that surrounds them and Harry has the sudden certainty that the comment is more pledge than statement. More vow than simple remark. More promise than the assertion of a desire for further knowledge. His heart swells with the deep elation of sudden and undeniable hope and he can't stop himself from smiling right up into his companion's narrow face with the kind of radiance that sends one of the Slytherin's elegant eyebrows climbing up across his lily-white forehead in puzzled demand for the kind of clarification that he's thoroughly delighted to offer:

"I thought you'd never ask, my prince..."

**TBC...**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 10.**_

Severus plops on one of the many benches dotted along the walk-around path that runs along the Serpentine (*) with a low groan and closes his dark eyes against the sharp light of the bright January afternoon.  
"I'll never be able to even look at chocolate again. Not ever again, Potter..."

Harry reaches his side in the next second, takes a seat right next to him and laughs with crystal-clear delight.  
"You wanted to know what makes me tick, Severus, and I've waited a veritable eternity to be allowed to indulge your every desire."

Severus groans once again. The sound is heartfelt, low-toned and so quiet that it's barely even noticeable, but it makes Potter gasp so loudly that he opens his eyes with a startled little jolt and looks around them inquiringly, attempting to identify what, precisely, has elicited that thoroughly unexpected sound from his companion.  
"What's the matter? Is there someone you recognize around here? Do you think we are being followed?"

The Gryffindor's response to his understandable alarm is a rather puzzling bout of nearly hysterical laughter that catches him by surprise, so he abandons his careful appraisal of their surroundings in order to fix his puzzled gaze upon the seeker's inexplicably flushed expression instead.  
"What on Salazar's sweet Earth is wrong with you, Potter?"

His companion refuses to look him in the eye even as he throws a rather weak smile in his general direction before shaking his left leg with enough force to draw Severus' attention to the oddly uncoordinated motion.  
"There's nothing wrong with me, Severus. I had a bad cramp, that's all. This cold January wind doesn't agree with me much and I just sat on a frozen bench without bothering to cast a warming charm first. My coach would have had my head for it, if he'd seen me..."

"Oh!" Severus gasps, uncertain of the sincerity of that explanation but thoroughly unable to imagine what else the Gryffindor could be trying to hide from him while they are both so far away from home. "We could leave, if you want. I'm so used to the cold environment of basement laboratories and dungeon classrooms that I no longer react to the unpleasant contact of frosted surfaces."

"No. No, please... I was enjoying how relaxed you looked a minute ago. I can't remember ever hearing you whine about anything so much before. It's really cute."

"Cute? I'm not cute. And I wasn't whining, Potter. Slytherins are physically incapable of whining, that's a Hufflepuff trait. I was actually dying right here, on this bench, before your leg cramp interrupted me so rudely."

Harry laughs with delight and shakes his messy head from side to side.  
"I knew you were going to love that chocolate tour. As soon as I realized that the elves at the manor kept serving you the most outrageous chocolate concoctions that I've ever seen every single time you were over there for dinner I came to the conclusion that you must be some sort of closet chocoholic.

"I promised myself to bring you out here one day and watch you eat sample after sample of every single piece of the most delicious chocolate that's on sale on the poshest side of London these days. I figured that you'd be able to order as much stuff from Honeyduke's special selections as you like, but this would be something a little bit more... exotic. The historical facts about the different stores and the people who runs them that are also part of the tour provided that extra pizzazz that I was certain you'd enjoy."

Severus groans again at the memory of precisely how much chocolate he's eaten. He has no problem recognizing that he enjoyed every single second of their tour. The trip has been a wonderful surprise. Something that he hadn't even been aware was possible to do as an activity in muggle London and he certainly doesn't regret his decision to trust Harry's insistent reassurances that closing his shop on a Saturday morning in order to accompany him on another mystery date -to a fully muggle destination, no less- was going to be worth his while.

It has been worth it. Of course it has been. Potter's activity of choice had first surprised him and then driven him to such absurd levels of unfettered delight that he has spent the entirety of the morning grinning like an old and ugly fool. But now, seating for the first time in his memory on one of the hundreds of benches dotted along Hyde Park in the company of a gorgeous man who seems genuinely interested in him romantically, Severus finds himself unable to care all that much about whatever amount of dignity he's allowed himself to lose in the course of their outing.

Harry has been equally buoyant during their tour, smiling constantly at everyone and everything with the gleeful satisfaction of a man who has managed to dazzle him not only with the sheer amount of chocolate to be tasted and learn new things about, but also with this new and undeniable proof of how much emotional investment the Gryffindor seems willing to pour onto their budding relationship.

It's plain to see how much effort the seeker has been putting into each and every single one of their planned outings. How much attention he must have been paying to Severus' every action, voiced opinion and response to literally everything in the last couple of years in order to have gathered such varied and absolutely spot on knowledge of his likes and dislikes. Of his seldom referred to hobbies. Of his day to day routines and the real nature of both his affections towards others and the closely guarded vulnerable spots of his suspicious personality.

Thinking logically about it Severus realizes that he should be feeling a lot more threatened than he does. He remembers feeling that way at the beginning of Harry's pursuit, but now everything is changing so swiftly and so consistently that he can't help but marvel at the smoothness with which they seem to... click... together.

"Severus? Are you alright? You must have gone a million miles away from here..." Harry's gloved hand settles over his forearm suddenly, dragging his wandering attention right back to their shared park bench. He blinks slowly, as if waking from a pleasant -if short- daydream and allows his gaze to settle over the winter-gray surface of the huge body of water so pleasantly displayed before him.

He drinks in the soothing peacefulness of being able to just watch the rest of the world walk or jog slowly past them without having it attempt to intrude inside the small private bubble that he shares with his companion, so utterly uninterested about what they might be up to together that it can't be bothered to pry into whatever reasons brought them here or what, precisely, they are saying to one another."

"I'm just wondering how on Earth you managed to come across a London-based chocolate tour. I've seen what Draco's elves bring for you, too. Treacle Tart and Pecan Pie, if I remember correctly. You are a man of syrupy taste, Mr. Potter. I can't recall ever seeing you eat a proper dessert."

"Chocolate is not a dessert. It's candy, Severus." Potter points out, grinning from ear to ear at the outraged expression that such scandalous remark must have brought to his pale face. "Never mind that. I'm not going to argue with you over the true nature of chocolate, my prince. The point is that I've been dying to drag you here since I came across the group on one of my Saturday morning outings. I often wander around muggle London during the weekend. It's a relaxing way to spend my free time, since nobody knows me here and I can do what I like without having to look constantly over my shoulder, checking for the presence of camera-wielding journalists."

Severus shivers visibly as the idea of what awaits him once they make their relationship public hits hit with more force than ever before.  
"I'm honestly dreading the three-ring circus that my life will most likely become once our association goes public. I've never had the most suitable disposition to dealing with members of the press in general and they despise me probably as much as I detest them, if not more.

"They are going to relish being given the opportunity to tear my character to shreds under the guise of informing their readers of my moral unsuitability to become your romantic partner. They'll rake up bucketfuls of the most unpleasant facts that my colorful past has to offer and delight in the task of presenting them in the blackest light possible in order to sink my battered reputation lower than it already is, if that's possible. They'll..."

"Hey... hey... Nobody is going to harm either you or your reputation in any way, I swear. I'm here for you, Severus, and I'm no Dumbledore. I'm not my mother, either. I protect the people I love and that most certainly includes you. I'm not going to let anybody get away with hurting you. Not the press. Not my fans. Not the members of my family and other assorted friends. You will be safe in every possible meaning of the word, I promise."

"You won't be able to deliver that safety, Harry. I've been around long enough to know precisely how the world outside my limited social circle sees me. I'm a two-faced turncoat at best and a cunning Death-Eater who literally got away with murder at worst. No one is going to want that kind of scum anywhere near you. Attempting to deny that simple fact is... foolish."

Harry's hand slides so very gently down his forearm until those gloved fingertips find his own, squeezing them briefly in silent reassurance before pulling on them upwards, dragging his arm higher and higher. Then Harry places a single, close-mouthed kiss over his leather-covered knuckles while he watches him do it with wide-eyed trepidation.

He is strangely incapable of moving a single muscle, of pulling his hand away... and so he sits there, mute and paralyzed by shocked surprise, while those lips press themselves onto the aged leather of his dragon-hide glove and his heart begins to pound a mile a minute, pushing the blood that runs inside his veins into a veritable whirling that rushes through his entire body with the speed of a hurricane sweeping through the coast.

He is unable to feel the touch of those pink lips on his skin trough the layer that protects it against the winter cold, but he watches as the contact is both initiated and carried through, becoming undeniable reality. The image of that innocent touch that he sees but can not feel does something odd and frightening to him. He feels that kiss all the way down to his bones. Feels it like a touch that's meant to brand him far more permanently than the Dark Mark ever did and he blinks in utter shock, reacting purely on instinct as he tightens his own fingers over Harry's trembling ones in the next second.

"What are you doing to me?" He whispers in a small and frantic tone, attempting to understand what's happening, what's changing. What's making every hair on the back of his neck stand on end and every muscle in his body feel as if he's been suddenly turned to wobbly jelly.

Green eyes settle over him with tender devotion and those lips that have just branded him with their quiet little kiss smile at him so gently...  
"I'm trying to love you with every breath I take. I'm not doing anything more than that, Severus, but I promise never to do anything less. That's a vow that I can and will deliver, my prince. I'll move Heaven and Earth to help you believe it, if you need me to."

Severus stares right into those mesmerizing emerald eyes for a long time. His gloved hand remains perched delicately over Harry's own, barely an inch or two away from the earnest smile that's so slowly, but so certainly, conquering his every suspicion. His every misgiving. Offering him something that nobody else has ever offered to him before now. Harry is trying to lure him... home... with the boldness that only a true son of the house of the lion would have ever dared to show a jaded old pariah like him.  
"I believe you, Harry Potter " He whispers into the quiet " I finally... dare... to believe you."

**TBC...**

A/N:(*) The Serpentine, also known as the Serpentine lake or river is a huge man-made body of water that sits in the middle of High Park, in London, UK.  
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	11. Chapter 11

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 11.**_

Harry leans against the cool marble surface of the huge island that dominates his kitchen and takes a deep breath in an effort to keep hold of his swiftly disappearing calm. He's too rattled to cope properly with Severus' edgy attitude and the fact that the Slytherin's apparent willingness to have dinner at his house has given him an obviously premature sense of over-confidence in his own ability to turn this encounter into the same kind of undeniably pleasant meeting that they have been sharing on a regular basis lately is distressing him endlessly.

_'I should have known that things were going to go downhill between us as soon as Severus set foot here. He's not used to having relationships with the men he sleeps with and the fact that he's returned to 'the scene of the crime' is unsettling him too much to just... relax. He's upset and unable to hide it while I... I'm far too invested in him emotionally to dare confronting him openly about it for fear of ending up unnerving him even further...'_

"Are you all right, Potter?"

The question makes him jump right out of his frustrated musings and he turns swiftly around, fixing anxious green eyes on Severus' frowning face in unconsciously pleading response to the unwelcome sound of his last name being pronounced in that particular mix of irritated impatience and wounding detachment.  
"I thought you'd decided to call me Harry for good, Severus. You said you wanted to build on our growing closeness. Isn't that why you agreed to have tea over here, instead of going to another crowded little cafe for supper?"

"I take it you believe that my use of your family name is, somehow, detrimental to our purpose of becoming better acquainted?"

"I think so. Hearing you call me Harry makes me feel closer to you. I don't particularly enjoy it when you address me by the same name you used to snarl so spitefully when I was your student."

Severus regards him thoughtfully for a seemingly endless second. Those dark eyes rake his form from head to toes with the kind of focused intensity that can turn his bones to liquid in the space between one breath and the next. He shifts his weight uncomfortably from left to right, fully aware of the fact that his companion is discouragingly oblivious to how intensely arousing Harry finds the idea of having that unfathomable dark gaze fixed upon him so intently.

Severus' silent scrutiny is getting him rapidly flustered with the kind of sexual tension that he can't afford the skittish older man to see right now. He has to do something to avoid any further deterioration of the situation into something that could potentially distress his already rattled companion even more and he has to do it right now, before his physical response to being the sole focus of his Prince's undivided attention becomes so goddamned obvious that not even a cold fish like his beloved could possibly ignore it...

"You should go back to the living room, my love. There's nothing for you to do here at this point and having my special guest standing in the kitchen while I brew us a simple cup of tea makes me look like a bad host. I've got everything under control, Severus. I realize that our drinks are taking a long time but I'm brewing them the muggle way. Molly swears tea just tastes better like this..."

Severus' puzzled frown becomes downright suspicious at that point and he crosses his spindly arms tightly across his narrow chest in a clearly defensive gesture, taking in a deep breath before confronting him with uncharacteristic boldness:  
"Why are you so nervous all of a sudden? I thought this was what you wanted. You've been insisting that I come here for days and, now that I've finally done so, you keep running out of the living-room every two seconds. I don't understand what the hell is wrong with you, Potter. If you want me to leave your home all you have to do is say it."

"No! I don't want you to leave my home. I want you to stay, trust me on that..." His words break on a small bark of sheer hysterical laughter and he ends up raking the trembling fingers of his right hand through his hopelessly messy hair before making the decision of taking this bull by the horns and actually acknowledge the presence of the huge elephant that's sitting in the room right beside them "I want you to stay here so damned much that it's driving me crazy, my love. It's just... You've been looking really uncomfortable since the moment you arrived and it's finally dawned on me that you might not be mentally prepared to be here so soon after our night together.

"I've been assuming that you had enough time to come to terms with the fact that we've been intimate and I thought that I could cope with whatever small discomfort you might show about being here, but... you are reacting as if that night is still a pretty a big deal for you and it's hard to see you so unsettled without trying to do something about it.

"I don't want to upset you further with my usual touchy-feely approach to offering comfort and I... I don't know how else to reach you. It's hard for me to have you here, standing as close to me as you are right now, and still feel as if there are a thousand miles separating us from one another. I've never been as formal as you are and the need to hug you close and tell you that everything is going to be alright, that I didn't bring you here to have my wicked way with you for the second time is driving me insane. I'm willing to take this relationship at your pace, Severus. I'm not planning to rush you into bed at any point, no matter how long it takes you to decide that you trust me enough to share your body with me again without having an entire barrel of Fire-whiskey driving your actions."

Ebony-black eyes close in a small gesture of relief as Severus' entire frame simply sags, as if deflating, all at once. That lanky frame finally abandons the unsettling rigidity of the defensive posture that the man has been sporting since he arrived and a small chuckle escapes those pale, thin lips that rarely smile while a loose swatch of inky locks begins to dance around their owner's narrow face as he shakes his head from side to side in thoughtful introspection.

"I'm so used to your usual Gryffindor forcefulness that I started getting the wrong message as soon as you began acting like a thoughtful and considerate host. I believe you are over-thinking this, Harry. It is true that I'm not precisely comfortable with being here, but that doesn't mean I'll feel better if you start suddenly behaving so out of character. I've come to this house of my own free will and, although I'm fully conscious of what happened between us the last time I was here, I also happen to believe you when you tell me that you're willing to wait for me to feel ready to get back into your bed."

Despite the sudden relief that floods Harry's senses upon hearing his Prince's reassurances he can't help but feeling slightly deflated by the fact that his love seems so totally unaffected by his supposedly 'irresistible' physical charms.

_'So much for Witch Weekly's claim that I'm the most desirable bachelor in the Wizarding World these days, then'_ He thinks with a touch of bitterness and can't help the small snort that makes it past his lips. The sound is soft but edged with a clear tinge of disappointment that Severus somehow recognizes, judging by how fast that awful stiffness that turns his narrow shoulders into a straight horizontal rod makes its re-appearance.

"Potter, what on Earth...?"

"Oh, fuck this!" Harry finally explodes with no small amount of frustration at his own inability to stick to his damned perfect plan and avoid pushing Severus way too fast for the man's comfort. He knows it's a bad idea, but his innate sense of fair play is prickling constantly in the back of his mind, prompting him to lay all his cards on the table and stop trying to hide his physical attraction from the object of his every desire.

"Excuse me?" Severus whispers in that low and dangerous tone that just coils around Harry's senses and sets all his nerves on fire. The man is obviously peeved at being so rudely interrupted and ends up turning one of those pissed-off-professor looks on him, making Harry's battle with his own desires and instincts all the more difficult for the logical side of his mind to win.

"You have no idea of how you affect me, do you? You look at me and can't feel any lust whatsoever, while I... I'm itching to touch you right now, Severus. I'm constantly on edge around you, forever reduced to having to remind myself that I've got to back off. I've got to stop coming so close to you whenever we are standing side by side. I've got to stop reaching out to take your elegant hand or touch your reedy shoulder. I've got to stop myself from carding greedy fingers through your hair, or caressing the sharp planes of your cheekbone... I've got to try and forget the memory of precisely how heavenly it felt to have you kiss every inch of my exposed skin passionately, because remembering all that only makes me crave the glorious feeling of having your mouth on me all the more...

"Sometimes you touch a book distractedly or run your fingertip down the handle of a teacup with that thoughtful expression of yours and my heart abandons its dwelling place on my chest altogether and settles right in the pit of my stomach or the middle of my throat. Every time your hand glides over the polished backrest of a wooden chair or your finger traces the rim of your pint glass my mind short-circuits and brings me back here, to the bedroom you once inhabited and the mattress on which I writhed in reaction to the pleasure that you brought me with that very same touch."

Severus flushes bright red. His dark eyes widen and he looks instantly unnerved. He's both clearly shocked and uncharacteristically unable to hide how very flustered he has become. His usual formal rigidity flees as if he has forgotten how to keep it firmly wrapped over his heartbreaking vulnerability, leaving the awkward teenager it protects fully exposed to Harry's softening gaze.

The artless charm of his naive half-blood Prince enthralls him now as much as ever and he feels nothing short of fiercely protective of his precious beloved as soon as the man's lack of worldly experience is betrayed by the single step he takes backwards. By the uncharacteristically graceless shrug of a bony shoulder in a small gesture of helpless bravado. By the crystal-clear mix of curiosity and trepidation that has turned those usually unfathomable dark eyes into pools of dawning awareness.

"I assumed that you'd sated whatever physical desire you felt towards me the last time you had me. I'm not used to people ever wanting a... repeat... of that particular experience."

Harry snorts inelegantly. Looking right into those gorgeous black eyes with the kind of doting understanding that somehow manages to keep his timid doe pinned to the spot.  
"Have you ever considered that none of your one-night stands has been able to ask you for a repeat performance because you tend to disappear on them long before they wake up the next morning? There is a reason why you choose to bed strangers every single time you feel the need to be held, Severus. You are afraid of... this. You are afraid of having to endure the knowing look of someone who's seen you bare. You are dead frightened of having to stand there and deal with the knowledge that they've seen you. Really seen you. That they've traced those scars of yours with their hands. With their tongues... You are terrified of having to come to terms with the idea that someone may have found traces of glorious beauty where you see nothing but shame..."

The kettle chooses that second to screech loudly into the thickening silence and they both jump at the same time, having been so focused on one another that they've actually forgotten where they were and what they'd been in the process of doing. Harry sighs explosively and strides jerkily towards the muggle style cooker with obvious impatience, removing the pot off the fire and swiftly bringing the room back to the oppressively charged little quietude that Severus isn't sure he wants to break.

He feels unbalanced and on edge. He feels uncomfortable. Disoriented. Utterly uncertain. He's having second, third and even fourth thoughts about the wisdom of his decision to come here. To this house where they'd been a hell of a lot more intimate than they've managed to be ever since. To this place that should belong only to Potter's lifelong friends or long-time lover...

He believes he shouldn't have come here. Can't help the idea that he's pretending to have the right of having his presence accepted by these walls that have only ever sheltered him from the outside world once before. He has no right to demand the devoted affection of the owner of this flat. He has no claim over his companion whatsoever. Has no right to expect being cherished by him or offered protection, care and simple companionship in this slightly disorganized kitchen. In the homely, if cluttered, environment that the Gryffindor has created for himself...

"Severus?"

His name reaches his ears like the soft sigh often exhaled at the end of a prayer and he lifts his anxious black gaze upwards, bringing it into a headlong collision with Harry's own. Those green eyes are studying him too damned closely for his comfort. They are raking his pale features with the sort of intensity that does nothing to settle the deep fear that's spreading like lethal poison through his veins.  
"Don't look at me like that, please."

The seeker frowns with puzzled perplexity, obviously unaware of the soul-deep hunger that his expression betrays.  
"Don't look at you like what, precisely? I'm trying hard not to spook you, my prince. I'm sorry if I've managed to make you uncomfortable. That wasn't my intention, I swear. I just... I need you to understand that my desire for you isn't only platonic. It hasn't been quenched or sated or forgotten. It hasn't vanished, either, and chances are that it never will. I desire you totally, Severus. I crave your presence beside me in all: body, mind and soul. Sometimes I feel I can not breathe unless I see your face. Hear your voice. Have one chance to touch your hair, your cheek, your trembling fingertips..."

Potter's eyes widen in shocked dismay when Severus takes another stumbling step backwards and begins to whisper with frantic alarm:  
"I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready for any of it. I can't possibly give you whatever it is that you want from me. I won't ever be able to..." His words come to an abrupt halt as he begins to shake from head to toes, frightened right out of his mind by the sudden understanding of how very out of his depth he's dared to come.

His heart starts banging against the narrow confines of his rib cage and he feels literally dizzy with anxiety as his head begins to shake from side to side in flustered denial of everything that this man has now implied to desire from him way before he feels ready to start giving away even the smallest fraction of it all.

The seeker bridges the growing distance between them with a couple of steps forwards and proceeds to grab him unceremoniously by the shoulders with a grip that's both firm enough to still his instinctive need to retreat and gentle beyond endurance.

"Potter..." Severus whispers harshly, attempting to shrug that anchoring contact away, but Harry tightens his hold upon his shoulders with careful strength and then shakes his increasingly rigid form ever so slightly, whispering soothingly all the time:

"Ssshhh, ssshhh, my love... There's no need to panic, Severus, I swear. You need to calm down and give me the chance to show you that I'm not trying to push you into giving me more than you feel ready to give me. I'm not trying to coax you into my bed. I'm trying to be honest with you. I'm trying to tell you that there is more depth to my feelings for you than you're willing to see or even accept right now.

"You've got to trust me better than this, sweetheart. I haven't betrayed you yet so far and I'm not planning to start doing that at this point. I'm a grown man of twenty five, despite what you may think of my maturity, Severus. I can control both myself and my urges just like every other lust-addled bloke has to do when in the presence of his partner of choice. I'm not a caveman, you know? Giving up on instant gratification in order to prove to you that my feelings are more than skin deep is worth it, do you understand me? I don't want you for sex alone. I want you for everything. I want you forever and nobody manages to get forever out of a couple of romps, no matter how glorious they might happen to be, my love."

"Harry..."

"I know that you are afraid, Severus. I can see it as clearly as I see the dark color of your hair. I can feel it with the same sort of clarity with which I feel the softness of your robes against the palms of my hands. You are afraid and I understand that. But _you_ have to understand that I'm here to help you. I can and will support you through all of this. That is part of what we are building. I can't help you if you don't let me, though. I can't hold you safe in my arms if you attempt to keep me at bay. I can't force you to accept me when it comes right down to it, Severus. Your desire to be held by me, to be here at all, must be freely felt and freely given or my constant pushing on your buttons will destroy us both in the end."

Severus becomes as still as a wax statue, seeming to be thinking through Harry's words with the extra care of someone fully aware of the importance that his answer to them will have in relation to the warmth of the loving future that he craves with all his heart, but is still far too afraid to believe in at this point in time.  
"What...? What does that mean? I don't think I understand... I'm here. With you. In your house... I've accepted every date that you've proposed and dared to trust you enough to arrive at your door unchaperoned. I... I thought I've been making my choice patently clear."

Harry relaxes ever so slightly and allows his tight grip on Severus' shoulders to slacken inch by inch until he has no other option but to remove his hands from all contact with that slender frame altogether.  
"Yes. You are here, but... are you committed to this? To us? Are you really willing to finally take this relationship of ours out of the shadows? We won't be able to keep hiding it like this for much longer and I'm distressingly famous, Severus. I will move Heaven and Earth to protect you from the backlash of public opinion but I won't ever agree to keep you hidden.

"I. Am. In. Love. With. You. I'm not ashamed of my feelings and I'm not ashamed of you. Do you understand me? You need to be really sure that this is what you want, my prince, because sooner or later our association is going to hit the papers and, when that happens, you won't be able to backpedal out of this. Your life will never be the same. It won't ever return to its current anonymity..."

"How can you not be ashamed of loving_... _me?" Severus finally dares to ask the question that has been burning the tip of his tongue ever since he finally accepted the unfathomable fact that this man, who happens to be the single most desirable bachelor in the Wizarding World, has developed genuine affection towards him out of literally... nowhere.

"You don't trust me all that much, do you? Or at least you don't trust the strength of my feelings in the slightest. You've already decided that you aren't good enough for me and are allowing your inability to figure out why I might actually love you to mess up with your head. You think this is just a fancy. Something that will come and go like a swiftly passing season. Something as feeble and breakable as a thin layer of glass. You believe my love to be nothing more than a fragile little whim that will be ultimately unable to withstand the pressure of public opinion. You are convinced in your heart of hearts that we'll never make it, aren't you, my Prince?"

Severus flinches at the touch of bitterness that has begun to taint Harry's usually cheerful voice with its dark poison:  
"I don't think love can grow out of nothing. I've never treated you particularly well while you were my student and I'm pretty certain that you downright hated me during the war. I know that my loyalty to Albus sparked some sort of pity in your heart for my poor miserable self immediately after the final battle, but... you testified on my behalf and I just... left. We did not come into contact again until my return to England and, although we have managed to be reasonably civil to one another ever since, there has never been enough closeness between us to have prompted you to see me as a romantic partner."

"Can't you bring yourself to consider how easy it would have been for me to become attracted to an elegant older man, who happens to be one of the most intelligent creatures I have ever met, after being finally re-acquainted with him long after I outgrew the biased opinion of his character that I developed as an immature and prejudiced teenager?

"Do you believe it impossible for me to have been dazzled by the one unattainable creature who has never so far swooned as soon as he realized that the Savior himself had approached him with the intention of exchanging a few words with him? Do you truly think I wouldn't want the kind of loyal man who'd return home to a host of unpleasant memories and the undeserved scorn of a vengeful public out of love for his one and only godchild? Do you honestly believe that I'd choose some pompous social climber over an honest-to-goodness hero of the war who will be actually able to understand my darkest demons as soon as they rear their nasty little heads in his presence?"

Severus attempts to swallow the thick lump that has taken residence in the middle of his throat to no avail. He feels exposed all the way down to the rawest and most vulnerable fiber of his being. He feels both challenged and cherished. Utterly understood and taken into account. Valued beyond his own worth and adored past all logic and all reason. Loved in the most genuine sense of that word for the very first time in his memory.  
"I... Yes. I believe I might be able to bring myself to consider all of that, Harry." He whispers quietly in response and a small smile breaks out across the thin line of his lips when the Gryffindor lets out a thoroughly relieved little whoop of sheer relief.

"Thank Merlin for that, my prince. You had me as worried as an elf being presented with the unwelcome sight of a bundle of clean clothes. I don't know if I'd survive having another chat like this one with you ever again, Severus, so... If you honestly believe that we can not make it then, please, do me the favor of walking away now. I Think we've gone far enough into this courtship for you to have at least developed some sort of inkling about the nature of your future feelings towards me. Can you see yourself ever fancying me, my love? Can you imagine us on the same bed, on the same shower? Smiling at each other across a crowded room or looking after our sick carcasses with sympathetic care?"

The images that those words paint in the deepest recesses of Severus' mind are both frightening and precious. He can picture them so clearly that they feel more fate than question. More prophesy than dream. More possible than any other future he's ever dared to try to imagine for himself. His pale fingers raise ever so slowly, behaving for all intent and purposes as if they have a mind of their own, one that guides them quite unerringly to tangle in the tufts of Harry's messy black hair.

The short locks feel as soft as velvet against his sensitive finger-pads and he sighs with uncharacteristic abandon into the charged little silence that his sudden action seems to have created. Harry is submitting to his touch with unnatural stillness. He seems to have stopped breathing altogether and those eyes: so green, so expressive, have become as wide as saucers and are fixed on his face with unblinking adoration.

The open emotion so plainly displayed on those gorgeous young features touches something wild and hungry inside Severus. Something needy and fierce and... greedy... wakes within him and raises through his body like a wave of molten lava. His spine bends towards the love shining so brightly from that faintly tanned face, as if he's become a sunflower charmed to follow that particular expression to the very ends of the universe itself, and he ends up cradling Harry's face gently in the next second. Looking directly into his eyes and drinking in the hopeful joy that has begun to blossom across those delicate features with the wonderment of a man who's never seen something so beautiful before. He finally finds the courage to surrender to the tug of his own heart and places his daring mouth upon the lips of the Boy Who Lived, sighing with exultant satisfaction into the quiet silence and feeling so very... at home.

Their kiss is brief, but oh-so-perfect. It fills all the empty spaces of Severus' hungry heart and soul with the blinding light of sunshine, flooding him from the inside out with the kind of warmth that no casual touch has ever managed to make him feel before.

Harry sighs against the lips claiming his own with heartfelt delight and opens his trembling mouth to his Prince's tentative assault. A hesitant tongue-tip runs along the moist seam of his bottom lip and the flavor of Severus' gloriously familiar taste explodes inside his mouth in the next second. A groans escapes one of them, but Harry isn't bothered by the soft sound enough to try finding out which one of them actually made it. He can only feel the joy of having this man kiss him with the same lack of artifice that he's shown him once before.

Severus' touch has the unmistakable hesitancy of a youth who was never granted the opportunity of learning how to kiss properly, but what his Slytherin lacks in experience he definitely supplements with sheer enthusiasm and Harry's senses are taken over by the exhilarating feeling of complete and utter rightness that sweeps his entire body from the top of his dark head to the curled tips of his toes as soon as Severus' tongue decides to take the final plunge and tangles with his own.

Lack of air eventually forces them apart and they end up looking into each other's eyes with a sort of dazed wonder. Severus' mouth looks red and swollen, it's smiling with unbridled satisfaction for the first time in Harry's memory and the soft-eyed picture that his love makes in this instant becomes engraved inside his wildly beating heart, as if branded by fire. Long, potion-tainted fingertips keep on carding through his short and messy locks and he dares not move a muscle for fear of breaking whatever enchantment has allowed his precious Prince to find the blessed courage to touch him in this manner.

"I love you, Severus Snape. I love you with all of my heart." He whispers quietly into the contented silence that has bloomed between them in the wake of their first alcohol-free kiss and he feels as if Merlin himself has presented him with all the magic of the founders when his beloved Prince accepts his declaration at face value with a tender looking smile and proceeds to whisper softly against his ear:

"We should visit old Rosmerta on our next date, Harry. I believe it's time to take this relationship of ours out of the world of shamed shadows and expose it to the full brightness of daylight. We should bring our little secret out of its tightly closed bag. We should shake it free and allow it to become the kind of reality that nobody can deny. We should let this newborn relationship stand on its on two feet and watch it walk unaided. Let's allow it to grow confident enough to roam free out into the open, where it belongs..."

**TBC...  
**


	12. Chapter 12

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 12.**_

Severus looks towards the shadowy corridor that leads to The Three Broomsticks' loo, where Harry seems to have become inexplicably lost, and wonders if he should stand up and go 'rescue' his companion from whatever perils are keeping him so obviously busy inside the gents way past the time when most reasonable explanations for the rather rude delay would have sounded plausible enough to be believed.

The Gryffindor excused himself to go 'water the herb garden' around half an hour ago and the longer he takes to return, the more difficult it is for Severus to fight off the awful suspicion that he might just have been abandoned to face the pub's patrons all by himself.

He's been aware of the unnatural quietude that seems to have dimmed the usually loud atmosphere of The Broomsticks since the moment they'd entered it together, but has been striving to ignore it as best as he can. He hasn't failed to notice the increasingly confused sideways looks that he's been garnering with every passing second that he remains seating in solitary splendor at their table, stubbornly forcing himself to take small sips from his ever-chilled pint glass at regular intervals in order to portray the kind of unaffected self-confidence that he's really nowhere near feeling.

There's no doubt in his mind that his arrival here wouldn't have sparked quite so much unwanted attention if he hadn't entered the place in the company of The Boy Who Lived, himself. He'd been one of Rosmerta's regulars once and considers himself more than merely familiar with most of the people who are studying him now so intently.

He's been on friendly enough terms with plenty of them for years and yet, being on the receiving end of the puzzled looks that are converging upon him with barely disguised curiosity right now, he feels strangely disconnected from them all, like a foreigner who has just stumbled into the heart of a small and tightly-knit community.

He smiles briefly into his drink, amusing himself by trying to predict just how many surreptitious audio-enhancing spells his carefully applied Muffliato has been thwarting since he entered the place with the savior himself attached to his hip and allowed the man not only the liberty of guiding him across the crowded room by way of a casual hand firmly plastered to the small of his back, but also consented to sit with him at one of the most secluded tables the place has to offer in what must have looked for all intents and purposes like amiable companionship.

They'd already enjoyed a pleasant hour or so of lively conversation and chilled pints when Harry had suddenly taken a single look over his shoulder and proceeded to stand up in the next second, claiming an urgent need to go to the loo in such an abrupt manner that Severus had had no doubt that he was being fed a shameless lie.

Although they have been ordering their drinks in batches of two at a time, no one except their waitress has approached them so far and Severus knows Rosmerta well enough to realize that her careful avoidance of their table means that she has absolutely no intention of coming around to greet them while they're together. It's patently obvious to him that she wants to catch one or the other alone and there is very little doubt in his mind as to the identity of her target of choice. She has no ties to Harry, after all...

He'd be willing to bet that she's managed to signal her desire to share a private word with him to his companion and, now that he's been sitting all alone for the better part of half an hour he's beginning to wonder what the hell is wrong with both Harry and Rosmerta. He can definitely understand the Gryffindor's willingness to grant their hostess the privacy she seems to have indicated to desire, yet Severus can not imagine why the seeker would allow her so much leeway after she's failed to approach the table for so long.

He's just made up his mind to stand up and go in search of his wayward companion when he spots Rosmerta finally approaching out of the corner of his eye. She's making a beeline for him that is managing to turn every eye in his direction and he's left with no other option but to straighten up his posture and lean back against the backrest of the pub's uncomfortable wooden chair in a gesture that he hopes looks both confident and vaguely welcoming.

She flashes him a small, tight-lipped smile that instantly allows him to understand that she's seen right through his bravado and he sighs with weary resignation. Rosmerta has always been able to read him like the book he's tried real hard never to become. She'd been unreasonably fond of him from the moment she first met him, going as far as to shelter him from the marauders' vicious bullying whenever they targeted him openly either at her pub or in the village itself.

She's also one of the very few people who has been in the position of witnessing more than her fair share of his double-sided dealings with both Death Eaters and members of the Order, yet she'd never to his knowledge betrayed his clandestine meetings with the other side to either of those groups.

He honestly believes that she drew her own conclusions about the true nature of his allegiances during both wars pretty early on and, whatever she saw him do or heard him proclaim out loud while in her pub, she'd placed enough faith in him to grant him the benefit of the doubt, allowing his actions to remain strictly his business through those dark and violent years.

By now he's fully conscious of the fact that her steadfast silence has probably saved his miserable hide twenty times over and, although neither of them has ever bothered to address the issue openly, he's always suspected that the childless pub owner thinks of him with the fondness of a loving -if emotionally detached- mother.

She'd been the only person of his acquaintance who'd remained stubbornly neutral about his not-so-secret role in Albus' death during the horrible year he'd been forced to play the role of Headmaster of Hogwarts, going as far as to squeeze his shoulder gently on one occasion in what had ended up being the only touch of comfort he'd received at a time when he'd found himself utterly abandoned by the friends and allies of a lifetime. Forced by Albus' ruthless machinations to embrace the toxic adulation offered so freely by his despicable foes...

"Severus... It's so nice to have you back, child. I was beginning to think you've forgotten all about us." Rosmerta's cheerful voice greets him with genuine delight as soon as she's within earshot of his table, wrenching him away from his unpleasant thoughts. He acknowledges her words with a small polite smile and startles when she blatantly ignores the reserved coolness of his welcome and proceeds to plant a soft, motherly kiss on his reddening cheek.

"Madame!..." He splutters, utterly flustered, prompting her to pat him soothingly on the shoulder.

"Don't look at me like that, dear. I've missed you too much to bother with your tiresome formality. You left England without saying goodbye to a large number of folks and, now that you're finally back, you rarely bother to visit. You can't blame me for wanting to take hold of my chances when they present themselves, can you?"

"I come by often enough. I bring flowers to Albus' grave on a regular basis." He retorts stiffly, unwilling to be rude enough to ignore her friendly reproof, but not really in the mood to let her get away with treating him like an unruly teenager, either.

He's got nothing to hide, but he also doesn't owe anyone here his particular respect. He's finally left his former life behind. Has managed to abandon most of his old frustrations and pet peeves, allowing himself to grow stronger in the wake the emotional destruction they once caused him. He has fought a long, hard battle with himself to overcome the wounding feeling of betrayal that had crushed his heart with almost unendurable disappointment during the last year of the war and now has absolutely no intention of allowing anyone to drag him down that dark and miserable road ever again.

"Albus is dead, Severus. You could talk to him from your fireside chair and his soul would still hear you. He's not the one who'd benefit the most from having you visit during one of your short-lived and often unpredictable forays into Hogwarts' grounds.

"Minerva tells me that you haven't set foot inside the castle yet. You haven't visited her, either. You haven't visited me, or Fillius, or even Poppy... I couldn't believe it when you failed to come to the reinforcement of the castle's wards ceremony. Your participation would have made the magic stronger, since your role as a former Headmaster of the school has tied your power to the grounds in a way that no one else save Minerva has experienced. You've been avoiding us all in a most painful manner, child."

The mention of his former colleagues brings an uncomfortable knot of guilt to his increasingly constricted chest. He's aware that he hasn't dealt well with how easily they had been to convince of his supposed treachery and their lack of faith in him, particularly Minerva's, had cut him very deeply. Too deeply for him to cope with it and... move on.

Minnie had corralled him while he'd been stuck at St Mungo's and tried to force him into listening to her tearful apologies at a time when he'd been far too bitter to grant her any patience. He remembers having gone as far as to tell her he forgave her lack of faith, just to get rid of her. But the truth is that his trust on her affection for him had been so damaged already that returning to their former friendship had struck him as impossible.

The same can be said of the rest of his colleagues and the castle itself holds so many horrible memories for him that he's refused point blank to go back to it time and time again. He'd resigned from his Headmaster's position as soon as he'd been strong enough to withstand the magical ritual meant to dissolve his bond with the school.

He'd then proceeded to turn down both the opportunity to teach Potions and Defense, refusing to remain attached to the school as the non-docent, live-in Head of the Slytherin House and also rejecting the idea of becoming Minerva's deputy out of hand.

He'd gone as far as to donate most of his belongings to the school, just to avoid having to set foot on the place in order to collect whatever Draco hadn't been able to carry when he sent him to pack up his rooms and had left for the continent soon afterwards, unable to find comfort anywhere. Unable to cope with the idea that he'd decided to abandon the one place he'd called home for close to twenty years and had ended up with nowhere safe to... hide.

"I left this life behind when the war ended, Rosmerta. Some things were way too damaged to survive a painful patch up work and I've learned the hard way not to bother tainting good memories with the bitterness of more unpleasant ones. That's no way to honor past friendships that broke through nobody's fault."

She looks shattered as his words sink into her consciousness like poison-dipped darts. There's a heartbreaking fragility to her as she stands there, watching him through regret-filled eyes while her ample bosom heaves with obvious distress and a riot of brown curls waves back and forth around her lovey face as she shakes her head from left to right in crushed disappointment.  
"You've always been too harsh with those who wrong you. I understand how betrayed you must have felt at the time. I really do, but... You worked really hard to make us hate you, Severus. You wanted us to believe the lie you told us. You were too good at playing the role you choose to play."

"I didn't chose my role, Rosmerta. That was all Albus' doing."

Her face pales even further upon hearing his retort and she can't contain a pained little gasp from escaping her lush lips. Her hands tangle together atop the pristine white apron that she's wearing and her eyes contemplate him thoughtfully for a very long time.  
"Do you really imagine that we don't know that by now? If we can forgive you for never confiding on us, why is it that you can not bring yourself to grant us the same favor?"

Severus lowers his gaze towards the table, both unable and unwilling to sit there and look right into her old eyes while she rakes up their painful past over and over.  
"Let's not talk about the war, please. I'm trying to leave all that behind, where it belongs. I'm trying to survive the war and all its associated damage as best I can, Rosmerta. I have no desire to become trapped in a never-ending loop of bitter accusations that will never have the power to... soothe.. anyone's grievances."

"And this is how you're trying to do that? Do you honestly believe that running away to Europe and closing yourself off from everyone who might have welcomed the chance to apologize to you and work on rebuilding the bridges that once united you will bring you proper closure?"

"It has worked for me so far, Madame. I've got no intention of allowing you to guilt me into regretting my decision to walk away. I had no obligation to provide anyone with the chance to atone for their own failings."

She snorts fiercely, clearly riled by his implacable refusal to accept the blame she's so willing to heap at his door. Her gaze rakes the bustling pub until she spots Harry's unmistakable form leaning casually against the bar with his powerful arms crossed tightly across his wide, athletic chest and his iconic green eyes firmly fixed upon them, appearing for all intent and purposes like a watchful mother hen forcing itself to remain away from its weak chick while it stumbles around the yard in search of sustenance, but obviously willing to step in and remove it from all danger as soon as it catches sight of it.

"Why are you here with that boy, Severus? Why did you allow him to choose the most secluded table I've got and proceeded to sit with him like a friend or a lover? Do you have any idea of what your presence here, like this, seems to imply? Potter is... gay."

"I'm fully aware of the brat's orientation. I don't live under a rock, you know?"

She looks at him searchingly, curious gaze darting shrewdly between Harry's watchful form and his own.  
"Then you'll also know that he's pretty private about his romantic life and that, although he's been unattached for ages, he avoids going out with men on a one to one basis because he can't sneeze these days near another bloke without having The Prophet start planning out their wedding."

Severus swallows uncomfortably and forces out a single, rebellious looking smile. His eyes look directly into hers as he offers her the truth in a tone gone flat with rigid defensiveness:  
"I'm aware of that, too."

She looks so startled then that he can't ignore the small knot of dread that is trying hard to settle in his gut as her eyes widen with shocked disbelief.  
"Are you trying to tell me that Harry Potter and you are together? But... that's madness, Severus! He's young enough to be your son. He used to be your student. He's..."

"No longer a schoolboy but a man who finds me attractive. A man who has been bold enough to ask me for a date, Madame."

"But you've despised each other for years..."

"We now have loved ones in common. We've grown closer to one another by necessity." He points out quietly in response, shifting uncomfortably in his simple wooden chair and wondering why on Earth that goddamned brat isn't coming to his rescue. Can't he see that a well-timed interruption of this uncomfortable conversation would be most definitely welcome?

Rosmerta proceeds to read his thoughts out loud, picking on them with the same startling ease that she has always displayed whenever he's involved.  
"There's no need for you to try summoning him with a pleading look, Severus. He'd be here in a flash if he thought I'm making you so uncomfortable out of vindictiveness. He's been watching us like a hawk since he came out of the gents. That boy doesn't know how to love lightly. No lost child ever does... and he's more famous, more stubborn and more powerful than most. He'd be dammed near impossible to resist if he ever sets his mind on being... accepted."

Severus frowns at the quiet warning she isn't bothering to veil in any way. He pulls his distracted gaze away from Harry's intent features and focuses it upwards and to the side instead, allowing his dark eyes to clash with the thoughtful expression that has appeared on her lovely features. Bristling at the obvious worry that her lively gaze displays and thoroughly resenting the delicately nuanced question that she's failed to voice but has managed to convey nevertheless.  
"Are you seriously implying that he's... forced... me into coming here with him? He's no Voldemort, Rosmerta."

"He's no Albus Dumbledore, either. He won't love you like a mentor or a brother. He won't let you remain aloof, Severus. Harry Potter is an all or nothing sort of man. He's kept the same friends since childhood and dotes on them excessively. He'd be a rather intense lover: protective, loyal and faithful to the very ends of time. He'd be passionate and devoted beyond logic. He'd be precisely what you need, child, but he won't come into anyone's life without a price. He's way too famous for that."

"His fame isn't his fault. It'd be beyond unfair to shun him because of it."

"But you just told me that you want to find a way to live in peace, forget the war, leave the hurt it brought you behind and move beyond it. How are you ever going to achieve that by Harry Potter's side? He's the Savior himself, Severus. You won't be able to escape who he is and what he has achieved. You'll be condemning yourself to spend a lifetime glued to the biggest icon of the war there is, if you take him on."

"I'll be condemning myself to certain loneliness if I don't. He brings me peace. He understands me like no one has ever done. He makes me smile whenever he's around and that's something I'm not prepared to walk away from at this point."

"Do you love him, then? Because he does. I can see that much already and I bet it won't be long before someone calls Rita Skeeter and tells her exactly that."

"I believe I could love him if I give myself the chance to... try."

Her eyes rake his homely features with obvious concern before she sighs out loud in resigned defeat.  
"That might be a mistake on your part, dear. Are you definitely certain that allowing yourself to fall for Harry Potter is wise?"

Severus flinches visibly upon hearing her truly intrusive question and glares fiercely right at her. On one hand he's pitifully grateful for both her concerned honesty and the care she's putting into warning him against an association that might end up bringing him more grief than pleasure in the not so distant future, but he's also rather peeved at her unwarranted assumption that she's welcome to meddle into his private affairs.

"Why are you bothering to give me free advice so late in life? You allowed me to make far more dangerous choices at an age when I would have benefited a lot more from a concerned adult's guidance. Your worry for my future has arrived far too late to save me from disaster, Rosmerta, and by now I've already learned the art of choosing my own path without caring all that much for anyone's approval, let alone yours."

She gasps in shocked reaction to his sharp response but doesn't slink away in shamed retreat. Her eyes flash with pride and humor only a second before she pats him on the shoulder with unmistakable fondness.  
"You deserved far better guidance than you got. That's a truth that can't ever be denied. Albus, Minerva and I tried so very hard to give you what we thought you wanted at the time that we never had the presence of mind to try understanding what you needed the most. You have every right in the world to question the quality of our care for you, but... please... do not ever doubt the sincerity of the affection that fueled it.

"I'm an old and foolish spinster, Severus. I have loved you like the son I never had but have always been too proud of my much boasted about independence to recognize the fact that I felt the need to mother anyone. I dared to cast you into a very important role in my life that I only ever satisfied to the point I felt comfortable with. I've cared for you like a son but never openly treated you like one and, for that, I'm sincerely sorry, child. Having to come to terms with the fact that we lost your respect and your friendship as soon as the end of the war allowed you the freedom to finally choose your own path has been... hard... on all of us."

"So you want to make amends. Change your ways at long last and save me from a bad choice. You want to earn back the respect you think you lost when I walked away... Is that what this is about?"

Her smile is soft and loving as she looks into his eyes and dares to lift a trembling fingertip to caress the narrow line of his jaw.  
"I want you to be happier than you've been so far, Severus. I want to live long enough to see you smile for real once again. I want to see you at peace with the world that surrounds you and have the certainty that you are finally content with whatever lot you've chosen to fight for. You deserve to be showered with the blessings of the Founders and I want to make sure that I don't fail you this time around by letting you choose unwisely."

Severus swallows the huge lump that has lodged in his throat with difficulty. He feels uncomfortably moved by this woman's unexpected, but not altogether unwelcome, show of genuine affection. His gaze falls down to the table, focusing blindly on the still foamy content of his pint-glass and the motion forces her trembling palm to slide away from his face, pushing it into a gentle and unchallenged glide trough his unbound hair.

He takes a deep breath in a vain attempt to calm the wild pounding of his overwhelmed heart and when he finally realizes that such a feat will be impossible his instincts drive him to raise his head once again and seek Harry's emerald gaze across the smoke-filled room with a desperation that seems to fill his entire mind, body and soul like an almighty shout demanding help.

Their eyes meet without impediment across the distance separating them from one another and connect in such a way that speech seems, somehow, unnecessary. He allows his gaze to settle over that deep sea of bright emerald without knowing precisely what emotions he's broadcasting but not really caring about what they might reveal any longer. He's only conscious of his need to have the seeker come to him right now, in this very instance. He needs to feel the sense of peace and reassurance that he's begun to associate with Harry's presence. He needs the warmth that his seeker so easily brings into his life to help him fight the dreadful cold that his unpleasant conversation with the woman who is still standing so calmly right beside him has managed to awake within him.

As if pulled by a tightening invisible cord Harry pushes himself away from the bar and begins to walk towards him, never letting his gaze wander left nor right, never reducing his speed or allowing anyone to come directly between them, seemingly intent only on reaching his side as soon as his legs can manage the feat.

Severus watches the Gryffindor's graceful approach with exhilarated relief and his voice reflects the growing warmth that is beginning to spread like sunshine across his senses when he finally gathers enough presence of mind to pull himself away from the pub owner's touch in order to offer her his quiet answer:  
"I appreciate your worry on my behalf, Rosmerta, but I don't believe it's necessary at this point. Harry Potter may not be the wisest choice I've ever made, but I'm starting to believe that he can become the worthiest..."

**TBC..**. 


	13. Chapter 13

_**Courting Disaster. Ch 13.**_

Harry swallows hard, trying to keep a tight lid on his growing concern as he walks beside Severus along the deserted streets of Hogsmeade. They left The Three Broomsticks abruptly around fifteen minutes ago and his companion hasn't managed to offer him a single explanation for their rather unceremonious exit so far. He seems intent on putting them both through the aggravating process of traversing the village's abandoned streets aimlessly at breakneck speed instead.

The cold winter wind is sneaking in between the cracks left in the space between one of the tightly closed buttons of his heavy trench coat and the next, making him shiver uncomfortably despite the thick flannel shirt and heavy jumper that he's wearing underneath. He has just cast his second warming charm of the night over both of them and is fully aware of the fact that he'll have to renew it in less than half an hour if they remain out in this cold for that long, but he's reluctant to repeat his offer of apparating them back to his flat again.

He's missing the warmth of his fireplace with the fierceness of a man who knows that there are better, heated options out there to spend time with one's beloved and the idea of going back home and sharing a huge mug of spiced cocoa with Severus while seating comfortably on his living room sofa is becoming increasingly appealing to him. Only his awareness of the Slytherin's usual reluctance to spend time in his flat has managed so far to keep him from stomping his trainer-clad foot on the ground with frustration and demanding that they head back to his place right now.

He sighs loudly into the tick silence, attempting for the last time to relax enough to come to terms with the disconcerting fact that his Prince seems to have developed the urgent need to storm through the village streets like a man on a mission, clearly needing the mindless release that just walking out whatever it is that prompted him to request they abandon the pub's comforting warmth so abruptly might bring him, only... he can not force that knowledge to ease his growing concern and ends up breaking the quietude again, trying to reach out to his beloved in a bid to shed some light into whatever the hell happened back there.

"What did Rosmerta say to you, my love? It was obvious that she wanted to approach you from the moment we entered her place and I didn't think it'd be so big a deal to give her the chance to speak to you in private. Now I feel awfully guilty for letting her get so close since she managed to put you in a right mood in the blink of an eye..."

Severus startles visibly upon hearing him speak and finally stops his brisk pacing, coming to an abrupt halt at the end of the main street. He takes what looks suspiciously like a fortifying breath before lifting his dark head up towards the heavens and allowing his gorgeous eyes to close tightly shut, looking for all intent and purposes like the very picture of a man in the throes of a fierce struggle with his own temper and leaving Harry with no other option but to stand there and stare silently at the tightly controlled mask that is so slowly taking over those beloved sharp features, feeling both useless and helpless to comfort the man he loves.

He despises the awful blankness that Severus so often conjures when he's upset, but has no idea whatsoever of what, exactly, Rosmerta could have possibly said to upset his Prince so badly. He feels the instinctive need to step forwards and do something, but can't make up his mind about whether his rattled beloved requires a hug or a sympathetic ear and is ultimately unwilling to offer him either until he's finally certain that he won't end up making whatever is wrong worse with an ill-timed intervention.

"Severus? What did she say to you? Why are you so upset? I thought we were having fun. Everything was going swimmingly until I got the brilliant idea of allowing that damned woman get close to you..."

A heavy sigh escapes Severus' tightly compressed lips in a frustrated little whoosh only a second before the most beautiful pair of ebony eyes that he's ever seen settles over him, brimming what appears to be genuine contrition.  
"I'm sorry that I'm being such a bear, Harry. I'm the one who suggested coming here and now I've gone ahead and spoiled our date with all this... drama. There's no need for you to feel guilty about your desire to grant me a few moments of privacy with a woman who happens to mean a great deal to me. Rosmerta and I... we go back a long way. I've known her since I was eleven and she's grown to believe herself entitled to speak her mind about matters that very few others will dare to broach in my presence."

"Why would she upset you like this? She's been complaining about how infrequently you visit Hogsmeade for ages."

Severus shrugs awkwardly, looking uncomfortable with the idea of continuing the discussion any further.  
"I suppose she felt compelled to say her piece while she could. I haven't set foot inside The Broomsticks in years. She claims I've been sorely missed around here..."

Harry's puzzled green gaze narrows with obvious disgust.  
"She tried to make you feel guilty about not coming around more often? No wonder you felt so compelled to leave. I wouldn't have wanted to stay, either. She had no right to poke her nose into your business and make you feel... ashamed... of your need to stay away from Hogwarts. Coming back here must have been hard enough for you. The last thing you need right now is to have her making everything worse with unreasonable demands."

"Things are not as cut and dried between the two of us, Harry. I owe a lot to Rosmerta. She saw me plenty of times dealing with members of The Order one night and Death Eaters the next. She knew that I met with both sides. Yet she never, ever, revealed to either group that she'd seen me betraying them to the other."

"It wouldn't have mattered even if she told, Severus. Both camps believed you to be their spy on the other side. You would have successfully spun whatever she said to your advantage and she would have been killed on the spot. Rosmerta isn't the kind of woman who'd have remained silent for the simple purpose of protecting you. She was looking out for herself, too. You need to stop feeling indebted to people who never moved a finger to actually help you, my Prince. She might love you in her own weird way, but... she saw more than she should have and still kept quiet. That tells me right there that she'd have never risked her own safety to pull you out of a tight spot."

Severus shakes his head from side to side and looks up the hill, towards the distant lights of Hogwarts, with regret-filled dark eyes.  
"Not all of us are bold Gryffindors at heart. Just because she never supported me openly doesn't mean that she didn't do it in her own way. I became invisible after I murdered Albus. People who'd have trusted me with their lives suddenly began to look right through me. I felt so alone, so... lost. She was the only one who remained willing to look me in the eyes during my last year here. She was the only one who ever dared to touch me, Harry. It was no grand gesture on her part, I know that. It was just a small press of her hand against my shoulder, but it meant the world to me."

"Severus..."

"It doesn't matter if she has the right to challenge my abandonment of her or not. The fact remains that she reached out to me when no one else was willing to do it and I haven't bothered to remember that small action in a very long time... I just realized that I owe a lot of people more than the silence I've offered them. I've been battling the ghosts of the war for so long that I've allowed them to pull me away from friendships that were once precious to me.

"I haven't visited Minerva of my own free will in years and, whenever we coincide in some Ministry function or other, I tend to avoid her like the plague. I have the bad habit of holding onto my grudges for so long that they end up robing me off the chance to repair friendships that I should have never abandoned so easily. I told Minnie that I forgave her lack of faith in me during the last year of the war and yet I haven't managed to turn that assertion into something more than words..."

Harry's heart clenches in reaction to the unmistakable tone of regret that taints his Prince's gorgeous voice. His arm shoots out of its own volition, curling lovingly around Severus' slender waist in a move that's meant to bring the man instantly closer. The Slytherin stiffens almost immediately, growing noticeably taller as his lanky body straightens to it's full intimidating height in the blink of an eye.

"Harry, what are you...?" Severus frowns with confusion, resisting Harry's insistent tugging out of habit and ends up blinking with embarrassed disbelief when the seeker sighs loudly enough to interrupt his puzzled protest, raises himself on tiptoes and kisses him fully on the mouth for all he's worth. The caress lasts enough to leave them both breathless and soon Harry leans away the tiniest fraction to growl fiercely against his ear:

"I'm trying to hug you, you damned oblivious idiot! Now will you stop fighting me off at every step of the way and allow me to pull you tightly against my chest, so that I may be able to offer you the comfort you need right now?"

"Oh!..." Severus is so stumped that he becomes paralyzed with shocked surprise for what Harry guesses will be a very brief second indeed and he doesn't dare wasting any more time on ridiculous arguments. He steps forwards once again, pulling on his Prince insistently until not a single inch separates the tips of his comfy trainers from Severus' shiny boots. He then then drags the man even closer, using the glide of his open palm as it travels along the protruding ridges of the Slytherin's spine to press that slender body firmly against his own chest, until the potioneer has no other option but to sigh in exhausted surrender and allow his neck to bend down low enough for him to rest his pale forehead against Harry's waiting shoulder.

They remain thus for what seems like an eternity before Severus dares to voice his thoughts out loud:  
"I don't know where you find the patience to deal with all my nonsense, Potter. I'd had given myself up for a bad job after our first night together and gone out in search of a less troublesome lover..."

Harry chuckles softly, enjoying the simple pleasure of having his Prince so close. So willing to lean against him. So... his... to take care of for the time being.  
"I like troublesome lovers, sweetheart. They add spice to one's life. Now tell me the truth: is our current closeness really so frightening to you that you must revert back to calling me Potter? I'll have you know that I find the telling habit adorable."

Severus' dismayed gasp doesn't surprise him in the slightest and he curls his arms around those deliciously slender hips more firmly, anchoring his self-conscious beloved in place just in case he decides to attempt a flustered potioneer surprises him by remaining precisely where he is and offering him a simple acknowledgment in response to his playful comment instead:  
"Sometimes your knowledge of the reasons that drive me to behave the way I do comes too close to the bulls-eye for my comfort, Harry."

"That knowledge will never be used against you, Severus. It's just a tool that helps me anticipate your needs at any given time. A means to understand you better. The measure of my desire to get to know you in a way that no one else has ever managed to do before."

Severus takes a deep breath before lifting his pale forehead finally away from his shoulder and Harry feels the absence of that comforting contact all the way down to his toes.  
"Then you'll know that all this... touching... that's going on between us feels utterly foreign to me. I've never been held quite this lovingly before. And in such a public setting, too. I... this is difficult for me, Harry."

"Do you really want me to let go of you or are you objecting to our embrace because you are worried that someone might come across us? I know the middle of Hogsmeade is really too public a place to give anyone a cuddle, but... there's nobody else about, Severus, and you needed some comfort just now. It's not as if we are going at it on the cobblestones or something."

A short bark of startled laughter makes it past the potion master's lips.  
"Going at it on the cobblestones? That would be all kinds of uncomfortable, Potter."

"That's what Cushioning Charms are for, gorgeous. Not that I'm that keen on having everyone gawk at us in appalled fascination, if you ever feel the need to help me get rid of a good few years of the most intense sexual frustration that you can possibly imagine...

"The next time we make love is going to be pretty much like the first, only better, because there won't be a drop of alcohol anywhere near us. I'm going to love you all night long on a proper bed, with a fire roaring on the hearth and the lights turned down low. We are going to have all the time in the world to look and touch and feel each other and I won't place a single touch upon you that is tainted with my fear that it may be the last caress I'll ever give you.

"That kind of loving isn't a spectacle meant for the masses, Severus. My affection for you is a very private thing. I don't mind hugging you out here, on the streets, for everyone to see but the privilege of actually seeing your bare body and being allowed to touch it freely is a treasure that I'm just not willing to share. That sort of intimacy will tie us together, help us belong to one another in a way that's too private to be witnessed by anyone outside our small circle of two."

Severus smiles ever so briefly, clearly pleased with those words. His dark head turns slightly to the left, allowing his tall frame to align with Harry's own in such a way that he's able to look directly into his bright green eyes. Their gazes clash and merge together in a peaceful contemplation that feels open and full to bursting with the budding beauty of trust.  
"You have the gift of the gab, Mr. Potter. Whenever you open your mouth to give me a lecture on the finer points of love I find myself aching to believe that I can reach the same levels of exalted passion. You could inspire armies to defend you to their last glimmer of magic. Albus would have been so proud of you..."

"Albus was a manipulative old coot, sweetheart. I don't speak like this to gain your favor. I'm just voicing my opinions out loud in the hope that they'll help you understand what I want from you better. This courtship of ours is not a game, Severus. It means a great deal to me. This is my chance to finally reach out for all the things that I've always dreamed of having."

"You dream of being loved by me. That's such a strange dream to have... Some people may even argue that it sounds more like a nightmare than a dream, Harry. I'm afraid that your hopes for the future don't seem very wise."

Harry snorts lightly in amusement, refusing to take the self-disparaging implications that underline his Prince's statement to heart. They've had this conversation enough times already as far as he's concerned and he has decided to stop trying to fight this particular battle every single time that Severus brings it up. Only time will settle the man's understandable fears, anyway. Words alone can only lead them so far...

He smiles gently instead of answering, allowing his hands to uncurl from their comfortable position around Severus' hips and letting them travel slowly upwards along those spindly arms until he's able to settle them oh-so-lovingly over his Prince's sharp cheekbones, proceeding to cradle that pale and narrow face as if it were a fragile crystal even though his touch is actually forcing that visage to remain utterly still. Locking it firmly in place while he robs it of the opportunity to turn away and avoid the sincerity that he can feel shining in the depths of his own eyes as he whispers out loud his answer directly against those lips that have opened ever so slightly in a gasp of startled surprise.

"Loving you may not be the wisest thing I've ever done, but you are most certainly worth whatever trouble my feelings for you have brought me. Do not ever let anyone else tell you otherwise, Severus. Do you understand me?

"Let those who are interested in doing such things argue the point of whether you deserve me, or I deserve you, or whatever other assorted bullshit they may wish to ponder about until they are all blue in the face and their throats have run out of moisture. My mind is made up already and no one will be allowed to mess with this decision. My heart is mine to rule over, that's the plain and simple truth. I'm a bold Gryffindor, remember? Wisdom isn't what we are after, that's a rather Ravenclaw goal. We, lions, go for pure gold, my love, and there's no treasure on Earth that's more valuable or precious than your heart, Severus Snape."

His heart skips a single beat when instead of startling backwards in agitated retreat, as he's been half expecting his beloved to do, the man leans delicately against his touch, pressing the sharp lines of his cheekbones even more firmly against the palm of the hands that cradle them in a gesture that makes him look like an overgrown black kitten.

Dark eyes close in a silent offer of beautiful surrender as his love remains very still, quietly showing him the kind of trust that he's certain hasn't ever been offered to anyone before now. A warm ball of sheer gratitude settles firmly in the pit of his stomach and he lifts himself up on tiptoes to place a single reverent kiss on Severus' pale forehead. The cold breeze pushes the long tresses that frame that utterly beloved facebetween them playfully, forcing those inky black locks to tangle loosely around his wrist, his fingertips and the hard line of his Prince's shoulders like delicate coils of silken midnight.

"I love you with everything that I am, Severus Snape." He whispers the biggest truth that his heart has ever known almost ferociously into the surrounding silence, allowing each and every one of those passionately felt syllables to fall over his precious Slytherin's visage like a soft benediction. Paper-thin eyelids flutter open once again and those eyes that are so dark and so full of often wounded emotions look directly into his own with hungry need.

"It's ironic how in tune we seem to be about this relationship of ours, Harry. You've just told me that loving me may not be wise, but you think it's still worth it and I feel illogically compelled to confess that I said the very same thing to Rosmerta not so long ago.

"You claim to love me and I trust you enough to believe that you do. I trust you enough to want to open my heart to you and see where that will lead me. It's certainly not the wisest choice I've ever made, but... I think it's worth it, too. I think you are worth the risk, Harry Potter, and I fervently hope that one of these days I may finally be able to look you in the eye and feel the genuine need to tell you that I love you right back..."

**TBC...**


End file.
